[okfn-discuss] INSPIRE directive consultation up for comments

Fri May 22 17:10:42 UTC 2009

Hello everyone,

I have been following this thread with interest. I want to participate  
and contribute to this, but lack the background knowledge and  
competence on INSPIRE to do so meaningfully at this time.

Jo, kindly do add me to the Google doc (punk.kish at gmail.com) so if I  
think of anything worthwhile to contribute, I will add my comments  
accordingly.

In the meantime, I will read up on the directive as well as the  
consultation documents at the ORG website.

Puneet.

On May 22, 2009, at 2:26 AM, Jo Walsh wrote:

> dear all,
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Rufus Pollock  
> <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Just to update from discussion off-list: Jo has very kindly
>> volunteered to draft something which we'll submit with ORG and anyone
>> else who'd like to sign on.
>
> Well, here is what I thought was worth writing down:
> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dctb97jj_10hp6nxgd4
>
> This boils down to:
>
> - The suggestion to exclude local authorities below District Council
> level from conforming to INSPIRE standards is incompatible with the
> terms of INSPIRE itself which says that the "lowest levels of
> government" must publish geodata which there is an obligation to
> collect in the law.
>
> - There is a long list of exclusions, including "intellectual
> property" and "commercial confidentiality", from offering even data
> viewing services (tyically a Web Map Service) free of cost. This list
> is lifted from the Public Sector Information Directive and the
> Environmental Information Directive. But if they were working, would
> we still need INSPIRE? It is better to be "more open" thereby
> complying with the spirit of INSPIRE. Note that there is always a
> "presumption in favour of public access" to at least data viewing
> services, and data search will always be free of cost.
>
> - At one point there is talk of only cost of maintenance to be
> chargeable (tending to a free marginal cost) for data and services.
> Elsewhere the phrase "and a reasonable return on investment", the
> language of the PSI Directive, is used. DEFRA cites the "Power of
> Information" review somewhere. Can the true intention be more
> explicit?
>
> There is scope for more on general themes, some pointers to the study
> into Trading Fund pricing models that Rufus worked on, that would
> belong in section 3.
> There is also a passage marked up [[ ]]
>
> [[This would be a point at which to go further into "intellectual
> property rights"
> and "confidentiality of commercial information" as they may apply to
> Crown Copyright data and data gathered by local authorities, planning
> authorities,
> etc. The guidelines already say there will be a "presumption in favour
> of public access" to "view services"]]
>
> How much time anyone would want to put into it is a judgement call
> based on the likelihood of this consultation being mere button-pushing
> or is there a real opportunity to create more open local amendments in
> the transposition phase.
>
> I am happy to add anyone to that google doc if they mail me their  
> gmail address.
>
> Sorry this took so long, I have been solely in charge of a baby for
> the past couple of days, it is hard work!
>
> cheers,
>
>
> jo
> --
>
> _______________________________________________
> okfn-discuss mailing list
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss

-- 
Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/
Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org/
Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/
Science Commons Fellow, Geospatial Data http://sciencecommons.org
Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
collaborate, communicate, compete
=======================================================================