Computing, GIS and Archaeology 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?

So 10 days ago now, the UK Government announced that they would be freeing up some Ordnance Survey data as part of a “drive to improve transparency”. You can read reactions to this all over the geospatial blogs (see Mapperz excellent round-up), some ambivalent, others mostly positive.

Me, I’m with the ambivalent crowd. On one level, assuming it’s actually useful datasets made available, and assuming we get to use them how we’d like to (using it in our internal GIS, for example), it will be great, and my colleagues will find their jobs considerably easier. However, like a lot of things the UK Government has done recently, this was handled badly (the lack of Ordnance Survey input into the original announcement,  speaks volumes). If it’s not going to be done willingly, will we see the same quality? The same commitment to survey the rural areas? Presumably, the cost of the remaining datasets will go up to cover the projected loss of revenue (whatever that is), so a lot of small businesses could end up in a worse situation than they are now- with expensive data that they can’t afford, or free data that’s not fit for purpose because it’s not complete or recently updated. Like Peter Batty, I don’t want our data brought in line with that of the US, as it’s currently much better!

I’m glad there has been a change, as I broadly support the Free Our Data campaign, and have done since it started, but I wanted it to be well thought through and planned for, and not a snap decision to try and win some votes. How naive of me…

I’m also concerned, like Peter Batty, about the affect on OpenStreetMap. I’ve been an enthusiastic convert to the benefits of OSM, since hearing of Muki Haklay’s completeness studies, and with seeing some of the beautiful maps and really cool innovations that it has spawned recently. At conferences in the UK this year OSM felt like the juggernaut it was impossible to ignore, and why would you want to?  OSM is now a valuable part of the UK geospatial ecosystem and I would hate to see that change.

You might have seen this post last week about how the Ordnance Survey once again saved the universe from un-approved uses of “their” data, by blocking an incredibly useful application that overlays Ordnance Survey mapping over Google Earth. You might have seen this post about it too. You might even have written to the Ordnance Survey to complain about it.

However, unless, like me, you had these posts tagged in your feed reader ready to write something about them, you might not have realised that the Ordnance Survey have (sort of) relented.  I say “sort of”, because apparently there’s still an issue between the terms of Google Earth’s license and that of the Ordnance Survey, but at least Gavin gets his API key back again.

Power to the people!

Time for another round-up…

• The Ordnance Survey have revised the terms and conditions of using their OpenSpaces mapping API (via Mapperz), which is a step in the right direction, since they now allow adverts on your site. There’s still a daily limit to the number of views/address lookups that you can do too. However, there are a couple of points that need mentioning/clarifying… firstly there’s a strange condition that you can’t use this for “internal business administration”. Not sure what that really means, but I assume it’s so you don’t stick it behind a firewall and stop OS counting your number of page views or something. Furthermore, there’s nothing obvious on the site about whether you need a license to use the data still, in which case it’s still a show-stopper. I’ve emailed them for clarification about that, so watch this space…
• Tyler Mitchell has an article in Direction Magazine about “Reassuring End Users of Open Source“.  I’m uneasy about the term “Reassuring”, as it has slightly negative connotations (“don’t worry!”, “worry, who said anything about worrying?”), but the article is well worth a read with some useful comments on the advantage of open source for businesses and the role of OSGeo.
• No doubt everyone already knows about the OpenGeo Architecture White Paper. Personally I think it’s another good paper to have around and quote from (or steal slides from) when trying to convince people that using open source geospatial software  is a more flexible and all round sensible approach to your geospatial stack.
• OStatic have an article about Open Source software at NASA. Not so much geospatial stuff going on there, but it’s good to see the top two reasons why NASA go for Open Source:

To increase NASA software quality via community peer review

To accelerate software development via community contributions

It’s good to see “quality” as an argument for choosing Open Source, rather than “saving money”!