Posted by
Russell McOrmond-2 on
Mar 02, 2006; 5:03pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/public-announcement-draft-1-tp256p321.html
Tracey P. Lauriault wrote:
> Ok! Just hard to get buy in! Abolishing cost recovery all together
> is a hard sell.
Do we have economists among us?
I'd love to find out if the "cost recovery" concept has even recovered
the costs of administering "cost recovery", leave alone anything else.
I also think we need to go beyond thinking of the public sector as if
it were part of the private sector. Money is not the only (or even most
relevant) measure of exchange, and in many cases the government has
programs to accomplish things which could be done more collaboratively
with other sectors if we abolished "cost recovery".
Can anyone think of a "cost recovery" justification for charging for
access to the postal code --> EDID lookup table? It would be easy to
find an NGO that would be willing to receive this data and publicly
distribute it if there was a (IMHO unjustifiable) claim that it would be
costly to make this information public (full public license or public
domain which allows for the royalty-free creation and distribution of
derivatives).
>> But this a valid point that we can debate/discuss. Anyone else
>> have some opinions on this?
>
> any others! Russel what are your thoughts on this?
I'm a FLOSS guy, and believe that only through full multi-sector
collaboration (including commercial for-profits, NGOs and governments,
all the way to volunteering teenagers in their basements) can the full
potential of any public information be realized (whether that
information be software or civic data).
In my mind what government agencies get in terms of resource
amplification from this multi-sector process outweighs any theoretical
"cost recovery" via royalties/etc that they can get now.
This makes me a little biased in all of this. Recognizing that there
will be barriers to our goals, and that we will need to settle for baby
steps, is different than knowing what we want for a final goal.
> it is pretty good! Less idealistic than free data for industry in
> this current fiscally conservative environment ;)
We shouldn't assume interpretations of ideaology on the part of any
party, even if we are part of that part. The "Corporate welfare bum"
concept is largely from "the left".
Conservatives are all for providing tax and other incentives to
promote innovation. Industry Canada has a number of granting programs
for private industry, many of which were either put in by conservative
governments or expanded by conservative governments.
Why should governments have programs where they offer grants to
companies, but not be willing to share something of greater value:
knowledge that can then be leveraged in value-add services.
All the reasons why tax cuts are good for the private sector equally
apply to eradicating "cost recovery" from government generated knowledge.
It is always a matter of wording things to fit what people want to do
anyway.
All IMHO of course ;-)
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <
http://www.flora.ca/>
2415+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60 which protects antiquated Recording,
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http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/