Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

I mentioned a while back the cool competition that the government here in the UK were running, called “Show Us a Better Way“. The idea was that people could submit ideas for mashups with public information. Well, the contest appears to have been a great success- it closed at the end of September and the winners were announced earlier this month (no, my entry didn’t win, sob).

Not unsuprisingly, the winning entries all had a geospatial component to them, but their future is already in doubt due to some over-zealous big-stick-waving from dear old Ordnance Survey. In short, the OS are saying that no data derived from their products can be displayed on Google Maps, due to incompatibilities between their own Contractors license and that of Google. It’s OK though, because they can use OpenSpaces, OS’s own mapping product,  although that is not for high-volume use, and the OS will own any data that you plot on it. As Charles Arthur comments- the OS seem to be operating the opposite of a GPL license- everything they touch, they own.

For those that already don’t think this is all a bit ridiculous and, well, crappy, here’s the rub: the Show Us a Better Way competition was part-funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, who the (publicly funded OS) have to report to!

So, this better way that they are supposed to be showing us, is already mired in complications and ridiculous licensing issues. Looks like we’ll have to crowd-source it then, as long as we promise never to read an atlas or look at another map again, just in case…

I’m just back from the AGi Geocommunity 2008 conference in Stratford-upon-Avon. A very enjoyable time was had by all I think! I would have posted from the conference itself, but the hotel wifi wasn’t keen on playing with my linux laptop.

I’ll talk more in other posts about the actual presentations, but this is just some of my general thoughts about the conference.

My overall thought was that the AGI got it right with this event. I went into it with some reservations, partly because I was talking about open source at a conference full of software vendors, and partly  because I am pretty new to the AGI and didn’t know what to expect.

From talking to people throughout the event, as well as the entertainment that they put on, I really did feel that they were trying to get a sense of community, breaking down barriers between vendors and users. I also felt that if open source gis software is to become more widely used, it needs to engage with that community on a professional level, rather than scratch around on the edges, or out and out refusing to come to the party.

I got to chat with a lot of people from proprietary software companies, and from the Ordnance Survey, all of whom were actually really interested in engaging with open source, and open access to data.  Again, more on the specifics later. It was suggested at one point that the concepts of open standards and open source are totally separate, and therefore to make the open source case better it is important not to mix the two, and I have been thinking about this ever since. From the perspective of Oxford Archaeology’s desire to adopt an “open ethos”, the two concepts are inextricably linked, but I do see that in some cases this might not be true. The standards people might not always want to be linked with open source because they need to engage with the proprietary people too. Something to think about as we continue to promote open source GIS within the UK.

On that note, I spoke to a few people about the idea of setting up a special interest group (SIG) for open source software within the AGI, and about arranging an OSGeo/AGI SIG conference within the UK next year some time. Both these points will need some expansion so I’ll leave it at that for now…

The title says it all really, Archaeogeek’s second birthday snuck by the other day without me even noticing. Mr Archaeogeek says this means I have to take him out for dinner. I’m sure he has it the wrong way around, but maybe he needs rewarding for putting up with me! Anyhow, happy birthday to Archaeogeek. I’m even more astounded than I was this time last year that my attention span has lasted this long, given that it has actually been a pretty tough year around these parts. Ah well, here’s to the next year- let’s hope this toddler doesn’t have too much of the “terrible-twos”!

In other news, there was a pretty low-key announcement from the British Cartographic Society about their 2008 Awards for “Excellence in [cartography]“. Props to the Openstreetmap/OpenLayers powered OpenCycleMap, and the Thames Estuary Coastal Habitat Atlas (can’t find a link to this) for triumphing in the Electronic Mapping category. However, tucked away at the bottom of the article was the following telling statement (slightly paraphrased): “(The Ordnance Survey Mastermap Award for Better Mapping was not awarded because there) was minimal or no innovative use of OS MasterMap data”. So… that’s what happens when you make the data too expensive to use… you get no innovative uses of it!

And finally, if you were worried about the affects of the switch-on in Cern earlier this week, well don’t worry. This website will help, and there’s even an rss feed for it. Phew!

Vector One points us to an article in the Independent about how google are destroying Britain’s culture by not showing it on their maps. The interviewee, from the British Cartographic Society, is slightly hysterical about this- let’s face it google are not *that* evil, but I have to say I agree with the basic premise, and disagree with Vector One’s analysis.

The fact is that Google maps are not as rich and interesting as those the Ordnance Survey produces. I’ve said in the past that there is more to maps than simply directions from A to B. As more people rely on google and satnav for their map use, they will miss out on all the unexpectedly interesting things you might find whilst on the the way to B.

Vector One seems to be suggesting that this is more to do with people’s inability to read maps than the increasing ubiquity of digital alternatives. This, therefore, must be the fault of the UK government education policy. While this might be true to an extent, it’s a symptom rather than a cause in my opinion. Personally, I think the fault lies with the Ordnance Survey, they’ve missed a trick really. They could have produced their own widely available digital mapping eons ago rather than wrapping it in prohibitive licensing terms and restrictive interfaces. Given a choice of google’s over-simplified view of the world, or the rich detail of the Ordnance Survey in your satnav or digital device, maybe a lot more people would choose the OS.