Posted by
Bob Gibson on
May 28, 2006; 5:11pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Re-CivicAccess-discuss-Digest-Vol-7-Issue-40-tp643.html
Marcel:
Thanks for this. I've been away from this world for some time, so am not up
to date. As one-time chairman of an ITAC committee seeking wider access to
government information, I remember some pretty rancourous encounters between
users and government "custodians" around the GPS isssue. But your synopsis
provides more clarity.
And I'm sure that things have progressed. But in this day and age, when
individuals have the power to develop powerful web tools, why should
negotiation and persuasion even be necessary? Obvious illustrations of the
benefits of data liberation abound. An individual who undertakes a project
to use GPS and fare data to improve travel times may, on his own time and
expense, come up with something of immense benefit to the world. If he's
required to negotiate for access to the data, the project won't happen. And
as for having to demonstrate potential uses to gain access, what about
serendipity? Isn't that a major factor in innovation?
So I continue to believe that the simple elimination of crown copyright, a
vestigal law if there ever was one, would be a powerful stimulus to
innovation. While it might not eliminate all the barriers to data access
(since it doesn't affect the power to establish licensing conditions) it
would send a signal to everyone (the government custodians included) that
protection of data from "abuse" is not a legitimate mandate. Their role
ought to be the opposite; to make the data available and encourage
innovation. The Klinkenberg article eloquently makes this point.
I hope CivicAccess will be one of the groups working to bring an end to
crown copyright.
Bob Gibson
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 04:52:32 -0400
From: Marcel Fortin <
[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Time Travel Maps
To: civicaccess discuss <
[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Bob,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the restriction on GPS accuracy due to
American encryption or degradation of satellite signals for security
reasons? The result being inaccurate GPS readings by several hundreds of
feet. Bill Clinton overturned this in May of 2000.
To answer your question, absolutely we missed a great opportunity in Canada.
The Canadian government was a leader in GIS and with its restrictive
policies and price gouges they crippled any kind of business or research
innovation that could have occurred in the geospatial industry in Canada.
It's hard to do market, population analysis, or draw a map for that matter
without data, or without being able to afford data. For a great article on
the history of the restrictive data policies of Canadian Governments and the
severity of their impact over the years, see Klinkenberg, Brian. 2003. The
true cost of spatial data in Canada. The Canadian Geographer/Le G?ographe
canadien 47 (1):37-49.
As for failure, I wouldn't qualify it as that. We have to realize that the
American model is not the one used around the world. Other countries have
similar policies to ours as well. Some countries don't even have data to
restrict. As well, the Canadian Federal Government has made huge strides in
making data available following the creation of the Canadian Geospatial Data
Infrastructure (CGDI) and Geoconnections in the late 1990's. One simply has
to look at the huge amounts of data available on geobase.ca and geogratis.ca
(yes, low resolution data for the most part, but it's a really good start
with great new, better resolution additions recently such as the Digital
Elevation Model product at 30 metre
resolution) Many provincial and some municipal governments are also allowing
downloads of their geospatial data for free. Manitoba has most of its
current data online for instance, Ontario is also making several of its core
topographic layers available for a very small fee. The National Capital
Commission allows downloads of their geospatial data if I'm not mistaken. I
could go on and on.
So, a failure? I don't think so. I think we have to build on some of these
successes and not try and compare ourselves to the U.S. too much.
The federal government is not oblivious to the fact that data are mostly
free in the US. In many cases federal and provincial hands are tied because
of Crown Copyright and licensing policy, or they think their hands are tied
See Werschler's "Dissemination of Government Geographic Data in Canada :
Guide to Best Practices" at
http://cgdi-dev.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/Best_practices_guide/Guide_to_Best_Practices_v12_finale_e.pdf
Our data cultures are different and we can't change that overnight.
The Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives (ACMLA) along with
the Canadian Association of Public Data Users (CAPDU) have worked hard at
negotiating data deals over the years. What we in the ACMLA have done is
demonstrate the need for their data, how they can be used (something they
don't always know), and how we intend to use them. The most effective
argument we often have, however, is the ability to demonstrate to them a
similar deal with another organization (this also works with industry). The
strategy is often used at the provincial and local level. I realize again
that these are academic deals but it does demonstrate the power of
negotiation and communication and the usefulness of building on past
successes.
Marcel