[Geowanking] Fwd: [OGC Press Release] Mash-up event to unite leading minds from the geographic information industry

[Nick Black]

On 10/12/06, Mike Liebhold <mnl at well.com> 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