[Open-transport] FW: Fwd: [openraildata-talk] Deutsche Bahn Open Data Hack Day/Night

Tue Mar 24 14:01:05 UTC 2015

On 24.03.2015 10:59, Trachsel Christian SBB CFF FFS wrote:

> Does anyone got information about the results of the Open Data Hack
> Day/Night.

Yep, I was there on my way to Moers on Friday night, and my colleague
Falco (@ulmerleben) participated in the hackathon and made it with his
teammates (whom he spontaneously formed a team with) to win two prices :D

The data was, unfortunately, provided only under a signed NDA and is not
allowed to be used past the hackathon. As far as I can tell, the
organizers from DB Fernverkehr and DB Systel were quite happy it was
“only” a one-pager, not a 15-page-NDA. So that's where we stand right now ;)

This raised quite a few eyebrows (including mine), _but_, in my
judgement, the people organizing the event _do_ believe in Open Data –
they just can't implement it as much as they wanted, due to corporate
policy. So, from what I can tell, this hackathon and the results therein
might serve as an example to be shown to higher-ups, proving the benefit
of providing interested civic hackers with data.

I recommended providing bogus example data (following the file format
and structure, but with random data), so the resulting code _can_ land
on Github and be worked on even further, instead of going stale. I hope,
DB will follow through on that.

Also, the location and catering were fantastic, the DB people
enthusiastic and welcoming. I'd love this to happen again, with _really_
open data, as well as with travel bursaries and a more inclusive format,
so _everybody_ interested in transit data can attend. As it were, the
crowd was mainly male and either from around Frankfurt, or well off
enough to pay for their fare. We're currently scraping our tea money
together to reimburse Falco, since he represented ulmAPI.de so well ;)

regards,
-stk