In short it is fairly good news for those of you who are tiring of having requests for information about data holdings from the likes of Ordnance Survey, Transport for London, refused under [Freedom of Information] on the grounds of commercial confidence. Public authorities affected by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Schedule 1 will be obliged to make the metadata for their geodata holdings available to the public free of cost, from 24th December 2010 (okay, so it’s still a bit of a wait). Additionally, “view services” complying with the Web Map Service spec will have to be available in just over 2 years time, for which there will be a “presumption of public access”.
So we will see Ordnance Survey’s MasterMap available in full via WMS (if still restricted for commercial use) or there will be a very good reason why it is not. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 5/26/2009 02:08:00 PM.
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.
