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.
