Daniel Terdiman, Weather Data for the Masses, Wired News, December 4, 2004. Excerpt: 'The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week began providing weather data in an open-access XML format, alleviating concerns that commercial providers would continue to play a dominant role in how weather data gets to the public. Previously, the data was technically available to the public, but in a format that's not easily deciphered. Taxpayers fund the NOAA and the subsidiary National Weather Service, which gathers weather data from thousands of locations and uses massive computing firepower to predict the weather. Commercial weather providers like AccuWeather and The Weather Channel then massage the data, supplement it with their own and turn it into consumer-friendly websites and TV weather segments. The commercial weather providers make more than $1 billion in revenue each year from sales to media, transportation companies, farmers and financial traders, according to Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president. That arrangement rankled some. "The public should not have to pay twice for access to basic government information that has been created at taxpayer expense," wrote Ari Schwartz, an associate director of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, in a July 28, 2004, essay....Earlier this year, NOAA made the data available in XML as a test, called the National Digital Forecast Database. After receiving comments from the public and commercial providers, the agency made the decision permanent this week. Now anyone can get information in an XML format directly from the National Digital Forecast Database website. "There was pressure on the National Weather Service not to make that information available," said Jamais Cascio, a writer for WorldChanging, an online pro-environment publication. But now "anyone with XML skills can build a reader," Cascio said. "It takes a minimal amount of XML knowledge to cobble together a weather program, and that's exciting."'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/05/2004 11:15:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
