On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:35 AM, David Hirst <[email protected]> wrote:
> Science has a news item > http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1337.summary reporting that > NOAA, > a major source of open data, has been asked to consider charging for data. > I do not know what licences they use now, but this may be an opportunity to > open a dialogue with them about the benefits of open data and licences. > NOAA > would no doubt wish for evidence of the harmful effects of restricting > data, > and the additional costs arising from managing it all as a private > resource. > David > Thanks David, To clarify: from the article "When an admiral needs to know where the U.S. Navy can keep its ships safe from an onrushing hurricane, or a government forester wants to pinpoint dry woodlands at risk of bursting into flame, both turn to specialized data collected by satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For decades, NOAA scientists have been carving the data into customized chunks that help other federal agencies solve some unusual problems—at no cost to the users. " NOAA is a government-funded organization that funds its own experiments and data collection. In this it's different from the long-tail of science where individuals collect data and where the costs of data management and archival are also being discussed. The long tail is common in bioscience, medicine, chemistry, materials and computerscience and perhaps requires a different discussion The closest analogy I have personal involvement with (2011) is the UK NERC (Nat Env. Res. Council). I won't speak authoritatively but they have a position where raw data (e.g. weather measurements) should be fully Open and that this gives the opportunity for others to create downstream added value including commercially. Requiring payment and restricting downstream use of raw data effectively kills much if not all innovation in this market. The position is similar to UK Ordnance Survey (government maps) which requires payment and restricts redistribution and catalysed Open Streetmap. It will be harder to build an Open satellite, but who knows? I would suggest also contacting the Brit. Atmos. Data Centre (BADC) and the Brit Ocean. Data Centre (BODC) to get UK views on charging for data. P. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069
_______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
