Posted by
Daniel Haran on
Mar 26, 2007; 2:46pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/MPs-by-postal-code-tp959p978.html
Hi all,
Thanks all for the great feedback.
The site as is only demonstrates data access and redistribution under
various formats. My hope is that others will use it in their projects
and offer a foretaste of what civic benefits we could get from freeing
this data. Please get in touch with me if you need help integrating
this, or have any questions.
There are a few ways in which this data can be obtained legally.
->Government finally stops duplicating its work and releases the data
in the public domain.
By far the best alternative, although it's going to take an organized
(and louder) political effort to get them to notice us.
->Canada Post could allow derivative products.
Ages ago I inquired with Canada Post about using one of their data
products and was told they did not see a web service as
redistribution, which significantly changes the licensing cost. Would
someone check with them? A polygon file of all the postal codes would
be enough to generate the correspondence database since the MP
polygons are already public domain.
-> StatsCan allows a web service to operate under a single license
Just as Canada Post didn't count a web service as redistribution,
maybe they'll compromise.
---
My preference would be for government to wake up and smell the roses.
In the meantime, if enough groups were to rely on a web service
perhaps we could perhaps obtain a common license as a stop-gap
measure.
While others pursue rigorously legal avenues, I'm happy to work with
code and reveal the grey areas. I believe both roles are needed at
this stage.
Daniel.
On 3/26/07, Tracey P. Lauriault <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> i just tried and it is wonderful!
>
> The only issue i can think of, it the look, feel and findability.
> General or novice web users may not find this service and may not be
> able to relate to the tool because of how it looks. It is perfect for
> most of us on this list but perhaps not for the general public. I can
> see this tool being very powerful particularly if there are elections
> coming up.
>
> I will send it around to some advocacy groups who may also find it useful.
>
> Cheers
> t