devlog

A few months ago i wrote a piece about the eurospatial cartel, which in its consultation process for the European Commission, overlooked the very clear and strong case for open access to state-collected geodata. Belatedly, i discovered that many of the recommendations in the INSPIRE documents have been collated into what is now going through the EU legislation chain as a proposed Directive.

Modifying the INSPIRE directive is my attempt to summarise where lack of consultation and evasiveness about licensing have led to inadequacies in the text of the proposed Directive as it stands. By modifying just one sub-clause to cover one other, we could turn the INSPIRE directive into a guarantee of free transfer and republication rights for european geospatial data as a whole. A response to this may be massively in the interests of any organisation as well as for the general public.

This geospatial data legislation is happening in the context of a lot of recent EC measures related to the information society, and a broader debate which comprises a lot of information licensing and contract conditions. Access to public sector information and the ability to make sense of it should be the key stone of this legislation.