Locus trade association responds to Free Our Data
The trade association Locus has sent us a response to the campaign (which is only a month old). We’ve put it in an article: Locus responds.
Basically, they’re in favour – while recognising that having more data available at low or zero cost would mean more competition. But there would be benefits:
- end-consumers through new products and services at competitive prices
- the public sector through established and secure markets for their data, which are constantly innovating new ways of putting that data to use
- the wider UK knowledge economy
Seems like a good start to us. What are your comments?
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- ..but we're just as quick: more questions re the international man (or woman) of mystery (31 July 2009; score: 28.91%)
- Catching up: government responds to OFT and Power of Information reports (5 July 2007; score: 21.94%)
- Late, but anyway: New Zealand makes (some) statistics free - but why? (27 July 2007; score: 20.21%)
- International man/woman of mystery is: international; from an NMA (3 August 2009; score: 20.15%)
- Trouble commenting? Be patient.. (17 March 2006; score: 20.09%)
April 4th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
I succinct and well written response – I could not agree more!
April 5th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Y’know, sonething free is worth every penny you pay.
The day the Guardian becomes a free sheet is the day I’ll start believing in free data.
Haven’t you lot got better things to do…you know, like work?
April 5th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Mr Five by Five,
You are familiar with the Guardian’s website where you can read articles published in the hardcopy edition of the Newspaper for free, are you not?
And, you are replying to a blog that is free to access are you not?
April 6th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Just take a loook at the free data available in the US and then decide whether that is what you really want.
I know from talking to them that it is not what local Government, Utillities, Telcos or transportaion require. That’s why they have to pay Navteq, TA, imagery and software/gps companies etc to create data that is fit for purpose.
All of those companies do repay the US Treasury with taxes on their profits but do those revenues exceed the costs that public sector bodies incur in acquiring fit for purpose data?
Peter weiss’ much quoted study does not seem to address this question.
April 7th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Mr Verge,
A question.
Who pays for the Guardian newspaper, its website, its blog and the salaries of all those nice people who bring them to us ?
April 7th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Mike Clarke,
In answer to your question…
Those who purchase the hardcopy newspaper. However, you dont have to purchase the hardcopy newspaper to read the equivalent online version.
This is why I questioned the validity of Five by Five’s point about the Guardian not being free so why should OS or other PSI be so. However, Five by Five’s analogy is of course more fundamentally erroneous because, public money is not being used to finance the business activities of the Guardian Newspaper Group.
April 7th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I find it laughable to suggest public money is not used to finance the Guardian. Lets see how long they would survive if public sector employment advertising was taken out their finances
April 10th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Relaxed Individual – surely the point is that the public sector is free to spend (our) money in whichever publication it likes. There’s no obligation to do it at The Guardian. If it chooses to spend with the Guardian, that’s a decision driven by the judgement of whether it’s the best use of the money.
The issue here anyway is not The Guardian’s finances, since I think we can agree that it is a private-sector organisation, but the finances of public sector organisations. Let’s remain on the topic(s), please.
August 7th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
surely the point is who is paying for this data: in the case of the Guardian the readers and advertisers (those that benefit from publication) fund the paper. In the case of Ordnance Survey the organisations that use the data pay for it. The tax payer does not “pay for it twice” as the free our data campaign suggests. Just as any other organisation that sells to both government and the private sector survives, and continues operations, based upon sales to both sectors, so does Ordnance Survey.
I fail to see how Ordnance Survey is the evil monopoly restricting access to information that the public has already paid for, when government purchases the information from OS to provide a service to the public; just as the government (and the private sector) purchase information from the huge number of subscription academic publications – there is no campaign specifying that these should also be free.
Perhaps the response to this is that the government paid for the creation of Ordnance Survey, and paid for its initial collection of data, and therefore this should be free; yet the government also set up BT, or BP, or Cable and Wireless. Now that these post-public utilities are more commercially orientated should they provide free use of all infrastructure (cables and pipes) that public funds paid for?
Perhaps I have misunderstood the point, but it seems that the Guardian’s campaign is a little misdirected?