[okfn-discuss] Open Vancouver

Fri May 22 10:41:06 UTC 2009

The city of Vancouver is looking at a motion to support open data,
open standards and open source software:

  http://eaves.ca/2009/05/14/vancouver-enters-the-age-of-the-open-city/

Details below.

J.

---

    MOTION ON NOTICE

    Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source
    MOVER: Councillor Andrea Reimer
    SECONDER: Councillor

    WHEREAS the City of Vancouver is committed to bringing the
community into City Hall by engaging citizens, and soliciting their
ideas, input and creative energy;

    WHEREAS municipalities across Canada have an opportunity to
dramatically lower their costs by collectively sharing and supporting
software they use and create;

    WHEREAS the total value of public data is maximized when provided
for free or where necessary only a minimal cost of distribution;

    WHEREAS when data is shared freely, citizens are enabled to use
and re-purpose it to help create a more economically vibrant and
environmentally sustainable city;

    WHEREAS Vancouver needs to look for opportunities for creating
economic activity and partnership with the creative tech sector;

    WHEREAS the adoption of open standards improves transparency,
access to city information by citizens and businesses and improved
coordination and efficiencies across municipal boundaries and with
federal and provincial partners;

    WHEREAS the Integrated Cadastral Information Society (ICIS) is a
not-for-profit society created as a partnership between local
government, provincial government and major utility companies in
British Columbia to share and integrate spatial data to which 94% of
BC local governments are members but Vancouver is not;

    WHEREAS digital innovation can enhance citizen communications,
support the brand of the city as creative and innovative, improve
service delivery, support citizens to self-organize and solve their
own problems, and create a stronger sense of civic engagement,
community, and pride;

    WHEREAS the City of Vancouver has incredible resources of data and
information, and has recently been awarded the Best City Archive of
the World.

    THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Vancouver endorses the
principles of:

        * Open and Accessible Data - the City of Vancouver will freely
share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest
amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security
concerns;
        * Open Standards - the City of Vancouver will move as quickly
as possible to adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents,
maps, and other formats of media;
        * Open Source Software - the City of Vancouver, when replacing
existing software or considering new applications, will place open
source software on an equal footing with commercial systems during
procurement cycles; and

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT in pursuit of open data the City of
Vancouver will:

        * Identify immediate opportunities to distribute more of its data;
        * Index, publish and syndicate its data to the internet using
prevailing open standards, interfaces and formats;
        * Develop appropriate agreements to share its data with the
Integrated Cadastral Information Society (ICIS) and encourage the ICIS
to in turn share its data with the public at large
        * Develop a plan to digitize and freely distribute suitable
archival data to the public;
        * Ensure that data supplied to the City by third parties
(developers, contractors, consultants) are unlicensed, in a prevailing
open standard format, and not copyrighted except if otherwise
prevented by legal considerations;
        * License any software applications developed by the City of
Vancouver such that they may be used by other municipalities,
businesses, and the public without restriction.

    BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED THAT the City Manager be tasked with
developing an action plan for implementation of the above.

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org