Open Letter regarding the INSPIRE Directive to the Members of the ENVI Committee in the European Parliament
Public Geodata is an effort to raise awareness of the proposed INSPIRE Directive that is going through second reading in the European Parliament now. As INSPIRE's wording has been changed as it passes through the legislative process, it's moved steading towards a policy stance based on intellectual property rights held over publically funded geodata by the state agencies that collect it. As well as the Open Letter and the collective research resources on the site, there's a public petition to amend or reject INSPIRE.
Open Access to State-collected Geospatial Data sets out the case for open geodata. Please read this document and sign it if you would like to show your support.
What is 'geodata'?
Geodata is information with a spatial component. It might describe something physical - a street or coastline - or be related to something physical, such as a billing address. 70-80% of the information collected by government is spatial in nature.
What is 'open'?
Open information is that which we have a right to freely use and redistribute works based on, without charge or restrictive copyright conditions. The BBC/Channel 4's Creative Archive is an early venture of open publishing of state-funded information. 'Open' is a legal, technological and social condition.
Why Open Geodata?
Maps and spatial information are used in a host of civic and political applications. A small revolution in mapping tools and standards is enabling business innovation and future locative mobile services.
Geographic data underpins services such as http://writetothem.com/ and http://theyworkforyou.com/
There are several projects in the UK collaborating to build free-of-copyright street level maps. Non-profits that have collaborated with the Ordnance Survey have proposed an non-profit open license for use of UK mapping data, currently Crown Copyright and expensive to rent.
The Open Geodata pages at OKFN provide some more context around spatial data, why it is important especially for government, and where it can justifiably be free or non-free.
There is a pledge at Pledgebank to support the Open Geodata Manifesto and to devote ten pounds to supporting open mapping projects in London and the development of open source collaborative mapping software. Alternatively you may donate directly via PayPal through the Open Knowledge Foundation
.
How will donations be used?
- To purchase a pool of GPS hardware for map-making and ground-truthing, to be used during workshops and during intensive localised data gathering sessions for open map making projects.
- Provide resources for attendees of the Open Geodata workshops and sessions at the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures, September 28th - October 2nd in London.
- Ensure future hosting arrangements for a future global open geodata service / mapserver.
Contact Information
Jo Walsh - jw@frot.org
Steve Coast - steve@fractalus.com
The geo-discuss list is a forum for the discussion of geodata policy and possible strategies for getting more of it into the public domain.
The openstreetmap-talk mailing list is a public list for discussion and development of open source software for free-of-copyright map-making.
There is a private geo-coord list now used for administrivia and for a token of 'membership' in organisation efforts . The current list members are: Rufus Pollock, Jo Walsh, Steve Coast, Roger Longhorn, Saul Albert, Mikel Maron, Richard Fairhurst, Nick Whitelegg and Benjamin Henrion.
Last updated: 14-02-2006
With the support of the Open Knowledge Foundation