Open Access News

The inventor of the world wide web has called for more open access to Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping data - and may get his wish later this year. Sir Tim Berners-Lee told an Oxford University audience last week getting "basic, raw data from Ordnance Survey" online would help build the "semantic web", which he defines as a web of data using standard formats so that relevant data can be found and processed by computers. "There's a moral argument that says, for a well-run country, we should know where we are, where things are, and that data should be available," he said. Berners-Lee said it may be reasonable for OS, the premier state-owned supplier of public sector information, to continue to charge for its high-resolution mapping. But even if licences were required, he added, OS should make its data open to manipulation. "I want to do something with the data, I want to be able to join it with all my other data," he said. "I want to be able to do Google Maps things to a ridiculous extent, and not limited in the way that Google Maps is." The guest lecturer said he had discussed this with OS. "They are certainly thinking about this and studying what they can do. OS is in favour of doing the right thing for the country, as well as maintaining its existence, so I think there's a fair chance we'll find mutual agreement." OS said it was considering opening access to data, through applications programming interfaces (APIs) for example, but only for non-commercial use. "If it happens, it will be in the next six months or so," said Ed Parsons, chief technology officer. Parsons said OS provides universities with access to its data. "It's about expanding this to non-academic research," he said. However, those using APIs would be barred from competing with OS's paying customers, even on a non-commercial basis. "We're constrained by competition law," said Parsons. The BBC's Backstage project, which allows non-commercial re-use of BBC material, is a possible model.

Berners-Lee said this debate was the first of many. "What happens with OS is going to be replayed with anonymised medical data, with data about all kinds of public things."...

Meanwhile, according to documents published last week, OS faces losing its official status as a fair trader unless it changes the way it licenses its geographical data. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), a unit of the cabinet office charged with promoting fair access to crown copyright data, says there is substance to complaints from commercial mapping firms that OS has been "obstructive and slow" in licensing its data....[The report] highlights the policy of licensing data for specific uses only, which "appears to many potential and actual users as rigid and unreasonable and does not encourage re-use".

For background on the Ordnance Survey's argument that "we're constrained by competition law", see a second article in today's Guardian, by Charles Arthur, Government organisations under pressure to make money. It contains a list of UK government agencies that are "required by law to make back in revenues what they cost to run." The Ordnance Survey is one of them, as are the UK Hydrographic Office, UK Meteorological Office, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Many others are not, such as the Environment Agency, the British Geological Survey, and at least three of the research councils. (The article only lists three of the eight RCs, and all three are in the 'no' column.)