On 10/12/06, Mike Liebhold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Adam Hill wrote:
> I am stunned, do they have any idea what they are getting themselves
> into? :)
Hi Adam,
I'm not suprised at all. I atended another Ordnance Survey meeting two
weeks ago called Terra Future and was pleasantly suprised at how
enlightened the Ordnance Survey is. Almost everyone I met knew and
spoke nicely about open mapping mashups, tagging, georss, semweb, tech
and heads-up views of geodata.
Here are a few notes:
- There were lots of people from the UK gov there, and I heard from
many that public access to geodata is gettting lots of cabinet level
attention as part of an overall examination of larger issues re:
public access to public data. Over drinks the night before it became
clear that OS is acutely aware of the benefits of free access, so I
didn't really flame them during my talk the next day. They 'get it' and
are trying to figure out how to balance with their legacy mandate to
become self sufficient.
Talk. No action.
-Victoria Lawrence, Ordnance Survey CEO told me she is horrified that
\the US has outsourced the US geodata onestop to ESRI. ( me too)
Perhaps because she fears the UK market opening up in a similar way?
Vanessa Lawrence will defend to the hilt, the right of the OS and any
Government agency to charge tax payers for data that they have already
paid for, and more significantly, the right of Government agencies to
aggresively license public data.
See:
http://www.rsa.org.uk/Events/detail.asp?eventID=1901
for her opinions on access to data - and more examples of civil
servant's rhetoric. Interestingly, the OS CTO Ed Parsons was
supposed to be representing the OS and this event, but was replaced at
the last minute by Lawrence, who almost totally failed to engage in
any meaningfull debate with the audience.
I am looking forward to the mash-up event next week, but as for the
motives and actions of the OS, I'm not so sure. Geodata will never be
freely available for all for the cost of reproduction in the UK whilst
the entire supply chain is dominated by an agency like the OS.
Nick
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