Thanks Helena. I will subscribe to the OSGeo Geodata Mailing List and post some questions there.
Landon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Helena Mitasova Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 2:48 PM To: OSGeo Discussions Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Advocating Reasonable Public Access to PubliclyFunded Geospatial Data Landon, You can find a nice example of how agencies already provide free access to publicly funded geospatial data released in formats that are readable by OSGEO software stack at http://www.nconemap.org/ You need to work with your state and local governments because they are the ones who fund most of the mapping and who have the data (and/or elect state legislators who make it a law to provide the publicly funded data for free). I would guess that NC is not the only state in US that makes its data available for free, so there are probably more examples. Maybe those from other states where this works could share their experience. Good place to meet people from federal, state and local governments who deal with geospatial data is the state GIS conference (if I remember correctly you planned to attend one in your state), see the latest in NC here: http://www.cgia.state.nc.us/Default.aspx?alias=www.cgia.state.nc.us/ ncgis2007 NCGIS regularly includes session on open source software as well as data accessibility (this year it was "Low cost / High value web mapping" which was packed, for data it was "Data sharing, access and distribution" and many others) so people from agencies are kept up to date on open source software developments thanks to several great open source software and free data advocates that we have here, Helena Helena Mitasova Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences 1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208, Raleigh NC 27695 http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/ On Nov 12, 2007, at 4:25 PM, Landon Blake wrote: > Is there any effort at the OSGeo to advocate for "reasonable" > access to publicly funded geospatial data? By reasonable I mean: > > > > [1] With an affordable price reflecting the actual cost to > reproduce the data. > > [2] Released in a format that doesn't require expensive proprietary > software. > > > > For example, the United States Forest Service has some extensive > geospatial data sets available to the public, but they release it > in ESRI Geodatabase Format. (They didn't respond to my requests for > the data in Shapefile Format.) Another example is one of my local > counties, which sells data in ESRI Shapefile format for $200 a > layer under a very strict license agreement. > > > > I was wondering if there was any type of "committee" or other > organized effort at the OSGeo that provided "education" and > advocacy for reasonable access to publicly funded data. It seems > like a natural fit for the organization, and one great way to > enable everyday use of open source GIS programs. (At a minimum, it > seems like we could keep a catalog of public agencies and there > policy for the release of geospatial data.) > > > > Landon > > > > > > Warning: > Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against > defects including translation and transmission errors. If the > reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that > any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is > strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in > error, please notify the sender immediately. > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss