The open data dilemma
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-- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault |
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Hi Tracey,
I empathize with this problem all too well. It's a tricky issue because typically the app developers are rich bastards who never have or never will experience or understand poverty or the challenges facing those at the bottom of society. They are more concerned with cool iphone apps, and cannot even fathom the prospect that some people can't even afford to eat every day let alone pay for an iphone. Now the bitterness you detect in these sentiments is not my own, just a mere alternate perspective that is very real. The developers are not to be blamed for this. After all, if software companies are throwing oodles of money at you, who in their right mind would turn that down and willingly become impoverished? This is precisely the reason I had to embark upon a several year journey to understand and confront these issues head on. Sure, consulting with civil society groups can impart some information. But these are only words, nobody can truly understand or appreciate the difficulties that poor and/or vulnerable people face without having gone through it himself. Besides, even if the civil society groups know what needs to be done or what apps would be useful, who is going to pay for it? I believe I may be beginning to get a handle on some of these social quandaries. The key factors seems to be lack of money and lack of information. The lack of money issue I have confronted by creating the government expenses site to publicize government spending and make it clear that if there are abuses of government expenditures, the data to prove it does exist and there is somebody who has that information and can use it if examples need to be made. Hopefully this will trickle through the mindset of individuals in government and they will pull a little harder on the reigns of government spending without having to fire a warning shot across their bow or cut a swath through their ranks. Although I have been in discussion with Maclean's magazine should the numbers not be trending in the proper direction in the upcoming quarters and years. There is a finite amount of currency in circulation, so if less of it is spent on first class flights for MPs, there will be more available for social programs and tax rebates for poor people. The other main challenge seems to be lack of information. For instance, many poor people complain that there aren't social programs available to help them out with certain challenges. This I have generally found to be untrue. There are numerous social programs and support services. The ones which have fees associated with them generally have fee waivers for those in need. Even something as seemingly complex and costly as a supreme court civil lawsuit can be done by any individual for zero dollars if they are below the poverty line. The only barrier is information. After having researched the process, this is a pretty huge and currently insurmountable barrier for most people. A huge amount of education, reading and experience is needed to actually make use of these supposedly publicly available facilities. In order for a poor person in this country to actually make use of all of the social services available to help them survive and defend their rights requires knowing which dozen or so agencies to contact, knowing how to get in touch with them and knowing the right things to say and questions to ask to get information about which other several dozen organizations to apply to and which 100 or 1000 page documents to read and understand in their entirety as well as keeping track of phone numbers, names, website addresses, physical addresses and so many more little but crucial details. It would be completely unreasonable and pretentious to expect anyone to be able to make sense of all that, particularly a poor person who spends most of their time trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Is it any wonder that when somebody is offering 30 bucks on the street, no questions asked, for a degrading service that so many in a position of desperation would simply say yes, and head down a path that no upper middle class software developer could ever possibly understand? Now I don't claim to understand or fully empathize, but I do understand that there EXISTS something which needs to be understood. The solution I see for this is a centralized information resource for those in need, to help them make use of the available services, which if the government expenses project pans out, should be more in abundance every day. Cheers, ~Drew Mcpherson Bine Consulting Corp. On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Tracey P. Lauriault
My thoughts on this is that it is just too early and that it will
come. But education, or conscientization, along the lines of what you're doing, Tracey - building bridges between techies and the community sector needs - is what is required. Thanks for keeping the doors open. Of course, communication on the side of community groups / policy advocates and academics could be improved also. Developers aren't the only people that need to reach out. There's no reason why the people doing projects like this can't also build nifty iPhone apps. http://sites.google.com/site/enviropol1/ Mike relevant story Sask. developer builds apps for charity - May 10, 2010 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2010/05/10/sk-iphone-applications-charity-hackathon.html On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> The open data dilemma >> Where are the gains of Toronto's open data? >> By Joshua Errett >> http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=175064 >> >> I would add a 4th issue to this article, and that is the fact that the >> initiatives are too app & developer driven/targeted and there has not yet >> been the leap into the data using communities such as social planning >> councils, united ways, civil society groups, neighbourhood associations, >> poverty groups etc. who actually use public data and public administrative >> data for social policy of evidence based decision making. It is as if there >> are two clearly distinct demographics/groups that use data and there is >> little or no overlap. >> >> Last week for instance I attended one of the 4 day session of >> intergovernmental, FCM and CCSD meeting on community access to data, and not >> one app person or developer was there. I go to the Hackfest or Change Camp >> in Ottawa and none of the aforementioned community members are there. The >> community groups are not that interested in an iphone app about bus >> schedules, they are interested in ensuring the poor can afford to get onto >> the bus in the first place. >> >> I have always worked on access to public data for the community decision >> making aspects, for groups to be at the decision making table with the right >> information in their hands to argue for good policy for the most vulnerable >> in our societies. The Open Data groups have missed that. The closest I saw >> to that was the play group finding idea at the Ottawa Hackfest, the green >> space alliance app and the access to mp or councilor voting apps. They were >> about making information transparent and helping families and saving parks. >> I understand that apps that inform me about which Canal entrances are open >> or the where the good restaurants are, are fun and useful for some, and the >> work on those apps could lead to skill or code that could be used in other >> unintended ways. Concurrently, I would love to see app developers work with >> civil society groups to help people afford to go to the good restaurants or >> demonstrate a need for disabled access to the Canal. >> >> I am not sure how to go about it, if you have ideas let me know. >> >> -- >> Tracey P. Lauriault >> 613-234-2805 >> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault >> > > > > -- > Tracey P. Lauriault > 613-234-2805 > https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > -- http://michaellenczner.ca http://twitter.com/mlenc |
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I think its more complex. To get the most out of the data you need the data mining tools which is what Walmart uses. You also need big databases that include a lot of information about points of interest. SAS and SPSS will work but they are expensive. At the other end you need to make it easier for end users to access the data. Web apps only work if you can find the web site and have Internet access.
Recently I've been looking at Maperitive a PC based tool that can process OpenStreetMap (OSM) format data and render it. I've built a couple of .bat files that will fire up Maperitive rendering a particular area showing selective points of interest such as children's playgrounds etc so they stand out. So basically click on an icon on the desktop and up pops the map. It can be made to work in French as well displaying French street names. It looks as if it should be possible to right click the icon on the map and see the tag data as can be done with the web based version of OpenStreetMap and a couple of other tools. So hours of opening etc. It needs the data from somewhere but that could be a DVD or the hard drive at the library. The big problem at the moment is getting the data into OSM, both resource wise and the license on the data. Once its there then I think you'll see more interesting uses start to happen. We can have areas by the way and you can tag the areas with data. Copy the data from the OSM POI tags into a relational database (MYSQL?) and you can start to do some of the things you can do in SAS but at a much cheaper cost. Cheerio John On 20 May 2010 12:12, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote: My thoughts on this is that it is just too early and that it will |
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There are open source tools for some of the technology parts of this problem:
SAS, SPSS --> R[1] data mining tools --> Pentaho[2], WEKA[3], RapidMiner[4] I use all of these tools for data mining, analysis, visualization, transformation, clustering, dimensionality reduction, etc. -Glen http://zzzoot.blogspot.com [1]http://www.r-project.org/ [2]http://www.pentaho.com/ [3]http://www.r-project.org/ [4]http://rapid-i.com/content/view/10/69/lang,en/ On 21 May 2010 07:41, john whelan <[hidden email]> wrote: > I think its more complex. To get the most out of the data you need the data > mining tools which is what Walmart uses. You also need big databases that > include a lot of information about points of interest. SAS and SPSS will > work but they are expensive. At the other end you need to make it easier > for end users to access the data. Web apps only work if you can find the > web site and have Internet access. > > Recently I've been looking at Maperitive a PC based tool that can process > OpenStreetMap (OSM) format data and render it. I've built a couple of .bat > files that will fire up Maperitive rendering a particular area showing > selective points of interest such as children's playgrounds etc so they > stand out. So basically click on an icon on the desktop and up pops the > map. It can be made to work in French as well displaying French street > names. It looks as if it should be possible to right click the icon on the > map and see the tag data as can be done with the web based version of > OpenStreetMap and a couple of other tools. So hours of opening etc. It > needs the data from somewhere but that could be a DVD or the hard drive at > the library. > > The big problem at the moment is getting the data into OSM, both resource > wise and the license on the data. Once its there then I think you'll see > more interesting uses start to happen. We can have areas by the way and you > can tag the areas with data. Copy the data from the OSM POI tags into a > relational database (MYSQL?) and you can start to do some of the things you > can do in SAS but at a much cheaper cost. > > Cheerio John > > On 20 May 2010 12:12, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> My thoughts on this is that it is just too early and that it will >> come. But education, or conscientization, along the lines of what >> you're doing, Tracey - building bridges between techies and the >> community sector needs - is what is required. Thanks for keeping the >> doors open. >> >> Of course, communication on the side of community groups / policy >> advocates and academics could be improved also. Developers aren't the >> only people that need to reach out. There's no reason why the people >> doing projects like this can't also build nifty iPhone apps. >> http://sites.google.com/site/enviropol1/ >> >> Mike >> >> relevant story >> >> Sask. developer builds apps for charity - May 10, 2010 >> >> http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2010/05/10/sk-iphone-applications-charity-hackathon.html >> >> >> >> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> >> wrote: >> > >> >> The open data dilemma >> >> Where are the gains of Toronto's open data? >> >> By Joshua Errett >> >> http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=175064 >> >> >> >> I would add a 4th issue to this article, and that is the fact that the >> >> initiatives are too app & developer driven/targeted and there has not >> >> yet >> >> been the leap into the data using communities such as social planning >> >> councils, united ways, civil society groups, neighbourhood >> >> associations, >> >> poverty groups etc. who actually use public data and public >> >> administrative >> >> data for social policy of evidence based decision making. It is as if >> >> there >> >> are two clearly distinct demographics/groups that use data and there is >> >> little or no overlap. >> >> >> >> Last week for instance I attended one of the 4 day session of >> >> intergovernmental, FCM and CCSD meeting on community access to data, >> >> and not >> >> one app person or developer was there. I go to the Hackfest or Change >> >> Camp >> >> in Ottawa and none of the aforementioned community members are there. >> >> The >> >> community groups are not that interested in an iphone app about bus >> >> schedules, they are interested in ensuring the poor can afford to get >> >> onto >> >> the bus in the first place. >> >> >> >> I have always worked on access to public data for the community >> >> decision >> >> making aspects, for groups to be at the decision making table with the >> >> right >> >> information in their hands to argue for good policy for the most >> >> vulnerable >> >> in our societies. The Open Data groups have missed that. The closest >> >> I saw >> >> to that was the play group finding idea at the Ottawa Hackfest, the >> >> green >> >> space alliance app and the access to mp or councilor voting apps. They >> >> were >> >> about making information transparent and helping families and saving >> >> parks. >> >> I understand that apps that inform me about which Canal entrances are >> >> open >> >> or the where the good restaurants are, are fun and useful for some, and >> >> the >> >> work on those apps could lead to skill or code that could be used in >> >> other >> >> unintended ways. Concurrently, I would love to see app developers work >> >> with >> >> civil society groups to help people afford to go to the good >> >> restaurants or >> >> demonstrate a need for disabled access to the Canal. >> >> >> >> I am not sure how to go about it, if you have ideas let me know. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Tracey P. Lauriault >> >> 613-234-2805 >> >> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault >> >> >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > Tracey P. Lauriault >> > 613-234-2805 >> > https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> > [hidden email] >> > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> http://michaellenczner.ca >> http://twitter.com/mlenc >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > -- - |
Re: The open data dilemma
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Many of the NGOs have the tools they require to work with the data in house, although not all have the Geo software (Ted on the list can talk about those challenges in Ontario) the issue is the cost of the data, the time it takes to negotiate for data and the licensing, the grief in finding those data and the HR to use the tools.
OSM is generally not the tool of choice for the NGOs I am talking about since they already have street network files from the feds, they are doing data analysis and not just descriptive statistical representations. Also many of the groups are just starting to learn to do geo analysis. And when they do, often the licenses preclude them from sharing. In addition, most of the community research groups are doing data analysis and then the data representation of those analyzes, and those representations (mostly but not always not very fancy ones) are normally in the form of reports. There is not that much 'webby' stuff, except for the big kids like Amnesty and GreenPeace, the local planning councils generally do not have access to large international pools of funds to do that work, also the resources to do that work in a sustainable way are not always available. A couple of groups are doing some web mapping. Bref, the NGOs I am talking about need public demographic and administrative data, and they need those in formats they can use, with unrestricted easy to understand licensing, and at not cost. They also need to find those data and they need the boundaries for the different administrative units standardized into a framework (e.g. health districts, census, wards, federal electoral boundaries, etc.). These are the data I am talking about. That is why with open data we are not quite there yet as we are not thinking in those terms, as there are very different groups at the table. With time I hope to see more bridging. On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Glen Newton <[hidden email]> wrote: There are open source tools for some of the technology parts of this problem: -- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault |
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Hi Tracey,
My mistake: I assumed that no one needed to be convinced on this list that Open Government Data (real Open Data, not like the 'almost-but-not-really-open-data as released by the city of Ottawa recently: see also 'Free Beer') at granularities useful for communities, NGOs and individuals to make decisions in and about their communities. > Bref, the NGOs I am talking about need public demographic and administrative > data, and they need those in formats they can use, with unrestricted easy to > understand licensing, and at not cost. They also need to find those data > and they need the boundaries for the different administrative units > standardized into a framework (e.g. health districts, census, wards, federal > electoral boundaries, etc.). These are the data I am talking about. Yes, that StatsCan (There, I've named them!) sells its data to Canadians (with an extremely restrictive license) is absolute opposite of Open Government Data and something I find offensive. I worked at NRCan in the early 90s and railed against the selling of geo-referenced data to the public, and over a number of years we have seen the release of these data sets for free, with proper a Open Data license[1]. I am hoping that a similar effort to change policy at StatsCan will eventually take hold. -glen [1]http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/licence.jsp On 21 May 2010 12:18, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> wrote: > Many of the NGOs have the tools they require to work with the data in house, > although not all have the Geo software (Ted on the list can talk about those > challenges in Ontario) the issue is the cost of the data, the time it takes > to negotiate for data and the licensing, the grief in finding those data and > the HR to use the tools. > > OSM is generally not the tool of choice for the NGOs I am talking about > since they already have street network files from the feds, they are doing > data analysis and not just descriptive statistical representations. Also > many of the groups are just starting to learn to do geo analysis. And when > they do, often the licenses preclude them from sharing. > > In addition, most of the community research groups are doing data analysis > and then the data representation of those analyzes, and those > representations (mostly but not always not very fancy ones) are normally in > the form of reports. There is not that much 'webby' stuff, except for the > big kids like Amnesty and GreenPeace, the local planning councils generally > do not have access to large international pools of funds to do that work, > also the resources to do that work in a sustainable way are not always > available. A couple of groups are doing some web mapping. > > Bref, the NGOs I am talking about need public demographic and administrative > data, and they need those in formats they can use, with unrestricted easy to > understand licensing, and at not cost. They also need to find those data > and they need the boundaries for the different administrative units > standardized into a framework (e.g. health districts, census, wards, federal > electoral boundaries, etc.). These are the data I am talking about. > > That is why with open data we are not quite there yet as we are not thinking > in those terms, as there are very different groups at the table. With time > I hope to see more bridging. > > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Glen Newton <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> There are open source tools for some of the technology parts of this >> problem: >> >> SAS, SPSS --> R[1] >> data mining tools --> Pentaho[2], WEKA[3], RapidMiner[4] >> >> I use all of these tools for data mining, analysis, visualization, >> transformation, clustering, dimensionality reduction, etc. >> >> -Glen >> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com >> >> [1]http://www.r-project.org/ >> [2]http://www.pentaho.com/ >> [3]http://www.r-project.org/ >> [4]http://rapid-i.com/content/view/10/69/lang,en/ >> >> >> On 21 May 2010 07:41, john whelan <[hidden email]> wrote: >> > I think its more complex. To get the most out of the data you need the >> > data >> > mining tools which is what Walmart uses. You also need big databases >> > that >> > include a lot of information about points of interest. SAS and SPSS >> > will >> > work but they are expensive. At the other end you need to make it >> > easier >> > for end users to access the data. Web apps only work if you can find >> > the >> > web site and have Internet access. >> > >> > Recently I've been looking at Maperitive a PC based tool that can >> > process >> > OpenStreetMap (OSM) format data and render it. I've built a couple of >> > .bat >> > files that will fire up Maperitive rendering a particular area showing >> > selective points of interest such as children's playgrounds etc so they >> > stand out. So basically click on an icon on the desktop and up pops the >> > map. It can be made to work in French as well displaying French street >> > names. It looks as if it should be possible to right click the icon on >> > the >> > map and see the tag data as can be done with the web based version of >> > OpenStreetMap and a couple of other tools. So hours of opening etc. It >> > needs the data from somewhere but that could be a DVD or the hard drive >> > at >> > the library. >> > >> > The big problem at the moment is getting the data into OSM, both >> > resource >> > wise and the license on the data. Once its there then I think you'll >> > see >> > more interesting uses start to happen. We can have areas by the way and >> > you >> > can tag the areas with data. Copy the data from the OSM POI tags into a >> > relational database (MYSQL?) and you can start to do some of the things >> > you >> > can do in SAS but at a much cheaper cost. >> > >> > Cheerio John >> > >> > On 20 May 2010 12:12, Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> >> >> My thoughts on this is that it is just too early and that it will >> >> come. But education, or conscientization, along the lines of what >> >> you're doing, Tracey - building bridges between techies and the >> >> community sector needs - is what is required. Thanks for keeping the >> >> doors open. >> >> >> >> Of course, communication on the side of community groups / policy >> >> advocates and academics could be improved also. Developers aren't the >> >> only people that need to reach out. There's no reason why the people >> >> doing projects like this can't also build nifty iPhone apps. >> >> http://sites.google.com/site/enviropol1/ >> >> >> >> Mike >> >> >> >> relevant story >> >> >> >> Sask. developer builds apps for charity - May 10, 2010 >> >> >> >> >> >> http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2010/05/10/sk-iphone-applications-charity-hackathon.html >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Tracey P. Lauriault >> >> <[hidden email]> >> >> wrote: >> >> > >> >> >> The open data dilemma >> >> >> Where are the gains of Toronto's open data? >> >> >> By Joshua Errett >> >> >> http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=175064 >> >> >> >> >> >> I would add a 4th issue to this article, and that is the fact that >> >> >> the >> >> >> initiatives are too app & developer driven/targeted and there has >> >> >> not >> >> >> yet >> >> >> been the leap into the data using communities such as social >> >> >> planning >> >> >> councils, united ways, civil society groups, neighbourhood >> >> >> associations, >> >> >> poverty groups etc. who actually use public data and public >> >> >> administrative >> >> >> data for social policy of evidence based decision making. It is as >> >> >> if >> >> >> there >> >> >> are two clearly distinct demographics/groups that use data and there >> >> >> is >> >> >> little or no overlap. >> >> >> >> >> >> Last week for instance I attended one of the 4 day session of >> >> >> intergovernmental, FCM and CCSD meeting on community access to data, >> >> >> and not >> >> >> one app person or developer was there. I go to the Hackfest or >> >> >> Change >> >> >> Camp >> >> >> in Ottawa and none of the aforementioned community members are >> >> >> there. >> >> >> The >> >> >> community groups are not that interested in an iphone app about bus >> >> >> schedules, they are interested in ensuring the poor can afford to >> >> >> get >> >> >> onto >> >> >> the bus in the first place. >> >> >> >> >> >> I have always worked on access to public data for the community >> >> >> decision >> >> >> making aspects, for groups to be at the decision making table with >> >> >> the >> >> >> right >> >> >> information in their hands to argue for good policy for the most >> >> >> vulnerable >> >> >> in our societies. The Open Data groups have missed that. The >> >> >> closest >> >> >> I saw >> >> >> to that was the play group finding idea at the Ottawa Hackfest, the >> >> >> green >> >> >> space alliance app and the access to mp or councilor voting apps. >> >> >> They >> >> >> were >> >> >> about making information transparent and helping families and saving >> >> >> parks. >> >> >> I understand that apps that inform me about which Canal entrances >> >> >> are >> >> >> open >> >> >> or the where the good restaurants are, are fun and useful for some, >> >> >> and >> >> >> the >> >> >> work on those apps could lead to skill or code that could be used in >> >> >> other >> >> >> unintended ways. Concurrently, I would love to see app developers >> >> >> work >> >> >> with >> >> >> civil society groups to help people afford to go to the good >> >> >> restaurants or >> >> >> demonstrate a need for disabled access to the Canal. >> >> >> >> >> >> I am not sure how to go about it, if you have ideas let me know. >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> >> Tracey P. Lauriault >> >> >> 613-234-2805 >> >> >> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > -- >> >> > Tracey P. Lauriault >> >> > 613-234-2805 >> >> > https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > _______________________________________________ >> >> > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> >> > [hidden email] >> >> > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> http://michaellenczner.ca >> >> http://twitter.com/mlenc >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> >> [hidden email] >> >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> > [hidden email] >> > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> >> - >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > > > -- > Tracey P. Lauriault > 613-234-2805 > https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > -- - |
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I worked at Stats for about ten years before I retired. The corporate culture is cost recovery. Basically the organisation consists of lots of surveys, each survey has a project manager whose performance is basically judged on managing the money. They are very reluctant to share data unless they get a share of the profits from the new survey. The culture has advantages and disadvantages, give the project managers a new cheaper way to process their data and you don't have to sell it past the first one. The rest come pounding on the door to know when they can switch. The disadvantage is the data you are after for free will go free over the project managers dead bodies. Forget the official OSM database for the moment, based on my work with databases, my professional opinion is it isn't it isn't reliable enough for what the NGOs want. However it does have a tool set and people have spent time building scripts to import data and export. It uses XML tags to make it easy to transform the data. I think what the NGOs need is some standardised processes and procedures to make the existing data easier and cheaper to use. The census data, wards, etc are all "places" in OSM terms. They can overlap and have data tags. PCs these days can have terabytes of disk attached, quad core processors and with the nVidia Tesla GPU en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tesla as well that gives them more processing power than many old mainframes. If we can show a couple of decent projects then I think it will become easier to get the data released with the licenses required in a format that can be processed. However recognise that I'm of a technical bent so others are probably better at presenting the case. I can be rather blunt sometimes. Cheerio John |
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