Hey, look, even the Daily Telegraph – hardly a home of the idea of the free lunch – is reprinting Breaking Views pieces which point out that making data free brings bigger benefits.

UK map giveaway throws bread upon the waters pretty much sings from our songbook:

The Met Office and the Ordnance Survey are unlikely candidates to stimulate another revolution. The weather forecasts may be accurate (sometimes) and the maps beautiful, but as businesses, neither is going anywhere. This is no surprise, since neither is really suited to becoming a proper commercial enterprise.

Yet the data they own is, literally, invaluable. Made freely available, all sorts of would-be entrepreneurs could exploit it to build businesses beyond the dreams of the public sector. The slightly geeky approach needed to be a successful internet entrepreneur is commonplace among mapaholics and weather nuts. Given the raw material, they could make a thousand businesses bloom.

The proposal unveiled this week is vague – a consultation document is promised later this month. The ability of the civil servants to emasculate any good idea should never be underestimated. But this is one whose time has come.

Given their tiny profits, selling off the Ordnance Survey and Met Office would raise minimal amounts. Giving away the data will undermine profits, but the benefits in terms of corporate taxes should be much larger.

Thanks. We knew you couldn’t keep a good idea down.

The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
• If you get free data, what will you do with it? (19 April 2008; score: 23.57%)
• England and Wales schools database: available here in SQL format (4 July 2008; score: 18.18%)
• Another day, another budget; but we need monetary arguments (22 March 2006; score: 16.69%)
• The "Jersey question": what if the profits of free data move offshore? (3 November 2008; score: 16.69%)
• The money-go-round, and the truth about Ordnance Survey funding (6 February 2007; score: 16.1%)