Open Source Computing and GIS in the UK

So, we Brits are getting all excited because the Prime Minister gave a big speech about how Britain is going to be all fab,  broadbandy, and “totally, like Web 2.0, man”  soon. And all this data is going to be given away- look here’s some of it now. We’re all going to have instant access to Government services, free Ordnance Survey data, and a shiny Institute of Web Science to stick all the bits together.

Now, of course it’s a total coincidence that this is a nice positive announcement, and there’s to be an election shortly, for which we don’t yet know the date. Let’s not go there, since this is not a political blog. Let’s also not contrast this with the Digital Economy Bill, fast-tracking it’s way through parliament on somewhat dodgy grounds as we speak, that threatens to take a lot of this nice shiny stuff away if you’re so much as caught within a mile of an mp3 that you didn’t buy from ITunes. Let’s not talk about carrots and sticks, or nice cops and nasty cops or other such comparisons.

Instead, let’s concentrate on the data.  They will, on April 1st, release “a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use”. The consultation only finished 5 days ago! How can they possibly have had time to analyse the consultation responses yet? Personally, while I look forward to the release of the data, and it is a massive win for the Free Our Data campaign, I would prefer that they gave the consultation responses some respect by analysing them in detail, or at least pretended to read them properly.  I told someone off for assuming that the decision had already been made, and that the consultation was a waste of time, but perhaps they were right.

The rest of it, I quite like, though I’m yet to see a Government IT project really work properly. We’ve got (amongst other things):

• “core reference datasets that contain the precise names and co-ordinates of all 350 thousand bus stops, railway stations and airports in Britain”
• “an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies – a “domesday book” for the 21st century”
• “information on each set of data including its size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality”

All sounds good. I could get excited by this, but I just want to wait and see what happens, shall we, and not take our eye off the other balls?

On Friday and Saturday I attended the inaugural WhereCampEU “un-conference” in London.  The short review: if one comes anywhere near you- go for it! It’s well worth it and I enjoyed every minute.

The slightly longer review: since there were no themes or papers organised beforehand, I guess it was a good opportunity to take the temperature of a certain part of the UK/EU geospatial community. So we got lots and lots of OpenStreetMap papers and iPhone apps! Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing, but personally, the papers that stood out for me were Steven Feldman’s talk on Business Models and how we are all f*cked without one, and, as always, Bob Barr’s talk on the true cost of “Free” data.  That particular talk was timely, coming just before the deadline for the consultation on freeing Ordnance Survey data.

On business models- Steven gave the talk twice due to popular request (one advantage to the un-conference format), and got remarkably different responses. The gist was whether you could come up with a one-minute elevator pitch on your business, your customers, and your prices. If you can’t do that, then you should be able to. There was quite a split in the audience.  On one hand there were people who are genuinely trying to make a business out of what they do- who have mortgages to pay, employees to pay, and kids to feed, who can see the point in a business model, and on the other hand there were people with well-paid day-jobs and a lucrative sideline in making iPhone apps who couldn’t see the point. That’s an over-generalisation, but I have work to do, so forgive me. I did start musing about doing a 140 character “tweet-pitch” too but maybe that’s just jumping on the bandwagon!

Overall, at the end of the two days I didn’t feel like I’d been at a conference, even though it was just as packed and even more fast-paced than usual. It was just more relaxing and informal, and the lack of corporate salesmen helped too! The venues were fantastic, as was the food, and the evening geo-beer was much appreciated. The team were keen to point out that next year’s “un-conference” (if it happens) should be somewhere else in Europe. At the time there weren’t that many takers, perhaps because there was a UK bias to the attendees, but I’m sure the enthusiasm and positive feedback will percolate around and we’ll get some volunteers.

After that I spent a couple of days being a tourist in London and catching up with old friends. As a test, I did my London navigation with a zoomable paper map, which I can say works very well and is pleasingly analogue (no batteries or data costs). Crikey though- who needs that many Starbucks, Costa and Caffe Neros?