DD Day for Ordnance Survey – April 22nd 2009
Budget Day = Derived Data Day
Tomorrow, or April 22nd is budget day in the UK. With the economy well and truly on the rocks, this year’s budget looks ominous. But forget the small-fry stuff like housing, health care and education, what about geodata?
The Trading Fund Review is also scheduled for release tomorrow, and will effectively decide the Ordnance Survey’s future. Do they:-
a) Privatise the Ordnance Survey
b) Move to a publicly funded model
c) Split the organisation between some publicly funded and privately run functions
d) Do nothing
Everybody has their opinion on the merits of each, personally I would prefer option ‘b’. Stop the mincing around and pretending that the OS is a self-funding enterprise, it isn’t. Its subsidised indirectly by the taxpayer in the form of licence charges to the Public Sector. Define what we actually want and need from our national mapping agency; do we want to maintain high quality mapping of the UK, do we want to keep the luddite data straightjacket of “derived data”?
Death of Derived Data?
The single most positive change that could come from tomorrow’s fallout, would be the demise of “derived data”. Nearly all publicly owned geo data will be in some way derived from Ordnance Survey data, and the current Crown Copyright restrictions of “derived data” make it impossible to use the data without paying for an Ordnance Survey licence. Removing the digital straightjacket allows for public sector geodata to be freed up and shared, enabling innovation and better public services. See some great examples of mashups using (mostly screen scraped) public sector data – http://rewiredstate.org/projects
Tomorrow may also mark the death of the Ordnance Survey, who knows, they may be privatised? One thing is certain however, if “derived data” remains the OS becomes irrelevant. To get around the licencing restrictions, even local authorities are turning to OpenStreetMap – Surrey Heath Borough Council is blaizing a trail and contributing to OSM, the first Local Authority to do so (via @nick_b).
If the Ordnance Survey continues to practice the most ridiculous copryight restrictions, their only customer will be the Royal Geographic Society, nobody else cares anymore.
Christopher Osborne
Chris
Agree that a direction of travel is likely to be set as a consequence of Grimstone’s OEP recommendations (he was after all Thatcher’s privatisation guru) but it is unlikely to satisfy everyone! In other times (b) might hold sway but suspect that (c) is more likely.
The public sector does licence data from Ordnance Survey via the various Collective Purchase Agreements, subsidising some 45% or so of OS, the rest comes from the private sector, users that wouldn’t be paying if it didn’t feel it needed to and couldn’t turn a profit (and pay taxes etc) as a result.
The direction of travel will undoubtedly determine where the derived data debate goes next but if option (c) then a more (sic) collaborative approach to its resolution needs to be adopted than is currently the case.
James
Strong stuff
I think you have to recognise that the restrictive IP conditions are inextricably tied up with the current business model.If the model changes so will the restrictions
Incidentally if the govt went for your option b and the data became freely available without heavy restrictions it would be interesting to see how the OS would impact on OSM in the UK.
Don’t expect earth shattering announcements tomorrow. Look for signs of change and then watch carefully for the actions that follow.
Interesting times ahead for us geopeeps