Data : the key to the Climate Change debate ?

Over the next week or so the media will be full of stories from Copenhagen as the world’s leader fly into the city for United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP-15. There will no doubt be limited progress towards agreeing to reduce greenhouse gases emissions globally, getting international governments to agree on anything is difficult, and …

For transport data, OpenGov actions can speak louder than words

If you have ever wondered why there is such great public transport information available around the world on Google Maps compared to the UK, this Early Day Motion from Tom Watson MP will give you a major clue. So here is a great opportunity to test Government rhetoric about making government data that would be useful for …

Why boundaries are important geodata

A great post by Matthew Somerville on the mysociety.org blog, discusses the impact of Parliamentary constituencies changing and some of the political capital that is generated as a result. Transparency in this part of the democratic process will absolutely vital in the upcoming general election, and yes you guessed it although the boundaries are defined …

DataSF : A example for UK Local Authorities to follow ?

While UK Local Authorities still struggle to provide public access to their geospatial data because of the bizarre OS rules on derived data, the residents of San Francisco have much rich data at their disposal. Following on from the federal data.gov portal launched earier this year, DataSF – DataSF is a local version providing access to …

SDI in a paragraph.. take note Europe !

While the alpha geeks of the geospatial world were meeting at Where2.0 in San Jose, something really significant happened in Washington. From the FAQ of the Obama administrations new website data.gov launched today.. “What are some resources for viewing geospatial datasets? The geospatial datasets available on Data.gov are provided in up to three open file …

A rare victory for public sector data reuse in Europe

From Jeff Thurston at the Vector One blog, news that the Dutch operation of Landmark Information Group have won a case at the Dutch High Courts asserting that they should be able to access environment information from the City of Amsterdam without high license costs or limitations to its reuse. This is an interesting development because it is an area where there is little case …