On Jan 18, 2010, at 11:27 AM, Andy Allan wrote: > On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 6:20 PM, SteveC <st...@asklater.com> wrote: >> >> On Jan 18, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Andy Allan wrote: >>> This isn't me saying that I disapprove of a commercial company giving >>> away a whole load of raster maps for free, I'm saying I don't think >>> the government should be funding it. >> >> Okay so you feel rasters are a special case, different to vectors. >> >> But given the choice between >> >> a) giving away the rasters and OS losing 9 million quid a year, or >> >> b) selling them as they do now >> >> surely (a) is better because it frees up the maps, provides a better >> platform for innovation and weakens the OS? And I say weaken, because a >> weaker OS is far and away more likely to be more clueful about licensing and >> so on than it is now. And if it isn't, then a weaker OS is far better for >> the british geodata industry in that it will allow more competition. >> >> I think the point we're disagreeing on is that you would see that 9 million >> quid as filled in by central government raising their funding, whereas I'd >> expect the budget to remain static (I can't see central government upping OS >> at the expense of hospitals and schools right now) and OS to have to cut >> other activities or start other for-profit activities to compensate. > > I take your point on the "least worst" thing, but Page 11 of the > consultation shows, for both Option 2 and Option 3 (Option 1 being > "as-is") that the funding would increase to compensate. > "Significant funding from government would be required." > "Government would provide funding for the maintenance and delivery of > these datasets." > "This option would require substantial changes to the existing sources > of revenue, at the heart of which is a shift towards government paying > more."
Ah apologies I didn't realise. It feels like one of those catch 22 heads we lose, tails the OS wins kind of situations. I kind of suspected it would be like that which was my reasoning for not bothering with it in the first place. I'll read the full doc. Yours &c. Steve _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
