How the Inspire directive was watered down
This week’s Guardian Technology looks at the lobbying that led to the Inspire directive moving from one which would have mandated free data access between governments (and users?) in Europe, to one which allows organisations that charge for data to continue to do so.
Read Britain poised for victory in Brussels (which due to deadlines had to be completed before the vote and text was completely finalised).
However, the reaction has been mixed. Ed Parsons, chief technology officer of Ordnance Survey, writes on his personal blog (which reflects his views, not necessarily those of OS):
I would caution anyone reading too much into these early reports, the devil will be in the detail here.. and we should also not forget that INSPIRE is about a lot more than the licensing regime.
From now on the technical experts can get on with drafting the principles around which the infra-structural components that will allow spatial data to be shared can be built – in my mind the really important part of INSPIRE
the creation of metadata; the technology of interoperability; the development of data services; mechanisms to promote national co-ordination.
We’ll have to see quite what shape of devil is in those details. By the way, does anyone know of any bloggers within other relevant organisations, such as UK Hydrographic Office?
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- In today's Guardian: how Inspire was watered down (22 May 2008; score: 55.87%)
- Inspire countdown (9 November 2006; score: 54.65%)
- Inspire decision (22 November 2006; score: 43.94%)
- Departments weigh in on select committee Ordnance Survey enquiry (23 July 2007; score: 31.84%)
- Could free data have helped the Rural Payments Agency? (19 April 2007; score: 31.74%)
November 23rd, 2006 at 4:29 pm
[...] The negotiations are over on the harmonization of Europes Geospatial Data Assets.Read – Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) DirectivesPress Release (Eng, Finish) – European Parliament and Council reach agreement on spatial information directiveOpinion pieces from The Guardian’s Free Our Data Campaign – How the Inspire directive was watered down and INSPIRE decisionThe Talk on the street is, there has been much compromise and the extremes tempered! Which meams +/- more data access for all, +/- no cost, and +/- freer licenses! Sound like the classic Canada Political Compromise context!I look forward to sitting and reading all this! I am guessing that we will not see a Geospatial Data Commons just yet! Nor a North American unified directive on Civic Data Assets.There are some good initiatives to promote and push – Public Geodata License (PGL), initiatives like Open GeoData, work with the Open Data definition, the GeoConnections Dissemination of Geographic Data – Guide to Best Practices, the Geobase Unrestricted Use License Agreement.None of these are perfect and much work remains for CivicAccess.ca to do to get all our paid for geo data into the hands of citizens! Comments » [...]