Why Open Geodata?
Geodata is the term for information that describes our world; used with a Geographic Information Systems, (GIS) it is used to make maps, to plot addresses and routes, to power all kinds of public and private services that need to know where things are.
In Europe and the UK, most geodata is collected by national and local government agencies. A centralised National Mapping Agency (NMA). Data held under license by government is sold on a "cost-recovery" basis to commercial concerns. The new INSPIRE proposed EC Directive will entrench current cost-recovery policy.
Arguably the NMA holds a monopoly on a public information good. Data collection, update and "ground-truthing" is expensive. Digital redistribution is very cheap. Data licensing is profitable enough to support an NMA. The social benefits of more open access to government-held geodata - in particular the ability to "geocode", or locate the latitude and longitude of, an address - are more difficult to calculate.
WhyOpenGeodata is an attempt to state concisely and definitely the benefits of open access to state collected geographic data.
Access to Public Sector Spatial Information
Geographic data, collected by national and local government agencies, is a priceless public sector information resource. This may be street-level mapping data including street furniture and addresses, or topographic information about landscapes, shapes describing green areas and water bodies. Geodata includes various kinds of thematic data which has a geographic aspect - meterological, hydrographic and oceanographic - and all kinds of enivronmental monitoring information. State-owned geodata also comprises political and other administrative boundaries.
The Public Sector Information Directive (embodied in UK law as the Freedom of Information Act) highlights geographic information as a public resource.
PublicInformationInfrastructures
UK Geodata Policy
In the UK, geodata is collected and maintained by the Ordnance Survey (OS). Since 1998 the OS has been a Trading Fund, a government-owned company obliged to cover its own costs, and invest profits in its own infrastructure. The OS operates as a clearing-house for geodata collected by local government - new and renamed addresses, land use information, etc.
The geodata held by the OS is licensed under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Copyright; it is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act as a commercial interest. The OS co-owns the street address to lat/long geocoding data with the Post Office; both charge several thousand pounds for an annual license.
A signficant proportion of Ordnance Survey's geodata licenses - probably in the order of 40% - are issued to local and central government, and to other government-funded bodies such as academic institutions.
European Geodata Policy
The new proposed European Commission Directive on a common spatial data infrastructure, INSPIRE designed in consultation with European National Mapping Agency representatives, seeks to impose a common data licensing and cost policy on European geographic data. INSPIRE is being pushed through as environmental legislation, though many environmental data producing and using groups have not been consulted on their needs and practises, and some of the stipulations in INSPIRE are counter to the spirit of the Directives on access to public sector (environmental) information.
OpenEuroData - The current plans, in the course of becoming EU law, are to impose a common cost-recovery, user-payment and proprietary licensing policy for government-generated geographic data. While the aims of establishing a common framework for European spatial data are laudable and longstanding, this process has been carried out without sufficient oversight, consultation or transparency.
OpenGeoDataStandards are an important part of national mapping agency standards. Central and local government will be able to use an inevitable new infrastructure to improve their quality of and potential for spatial analysis.
OpenGeoDataLetter provides a list of the weak points in the INSPIRE legislation and its process, together with contact details for MEPs currently involved in the Enivronment committee.
Global Geodata Policy
Worldwide policy on open geodata is trending strongly in the direction of open and free availability of state-collected geographic data. The US has had an open geographic data policy for years which has led to great developments both in free and community-built GIS, political communication services which depend on address geocoding, and in the development of corporate local search services.
Please read OpenGeoDataWorldwide for more detail.
What is to be done?
The Open Access to State-collected Geospatial Data Manifesto
Open Access to State-collected Geospatial Data is a collection of statements about open licensing of geodata and open standards for data exchange. Readers are encouraged to sign up to express support, if they agree with the statements contained therein.
Public Access to Maps/Data, Society of Cartographers, 6th Sept 2005
Most of the speakers at the Open Knowledge forum, plus others, will be presenting in the Public Access to Maps/Data session at the Society of Cartographers Summer School in Cambridge, 6-8th Sept 2005.
Open Knowledge Forum on Geodata, April 14th 2005
The second OpenKnowledgeForum, planned for Thursday April 14th, will bring together Open Source GIS software authors and mapmakers, with people working on spatial information systems for local government.
Open Geodata Projects
In the UK, several open-source projects are combining resources to attempt to produce free-of-copyright, publically editable street maps of the UK (and software to produce maps anywhere). See the geo page at OKFN for a list with references; the intensely interested may wish to join the mailing list at openstreetmap
Points for letter to MEP/MP on the new European Legislation
A draft OpenGeoDataLetter, covering the problems with the new prospective INSPIRE legislation.
Action plan for Open Data Awareness raising
- a one-page executive summary overview of the issues in the UK
a one-page overview of the impact of proposed EC legislation on national data licensing policy ( cf http://space.frot.org/docs/inspire_directive.html also OpenGeoDataLetter
- a more detailed body of research, especially on comparative international open geodata policy, presented in one place.
Follow up on conversations on the EGIP Euro-GI policy discussion list, with the EUROGI interest group and with the free software development community in GIS.
- Start a small, focused mailing list of committed parties and put up an interface to a campaign, with contacts, ideally somewhere in FFII space.