Free the data!

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Fellow CUGOSites:

At this weekend's OSGeo board meeting, I expect OSGeo to formally add their name to the amicus brief to the California Supreme Court submitted by the Sierra Club in their case against the State of California about keeping public GIS data free and open.

Full details on the case can be found here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OrangeCounty_Amicus

As we are geographically close to the venue of the case and as we are a separate legal entity from OSGeo, I've been asked if CUGOS would endorse this amicus brief as well. Please express your sentiment on this topic to this list or to me directly, and if the vox populi seems in favor then I will raise the issue with the CUGOS board.

Thanks!

_mpg

[Greg Corradini]

Did you mean: vox populi says free the cheese

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vox populi dit sans le fromage!!

_mpg


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Greg

[Angie Venturato]

Please support this amicus. Both my father and I have been contributors to gis data for the OC and for all of
California's coastal counties and at-risk communities under the assumption that these data would be free and open to the public. It has been really disappointing to see local governments attempt to profit off of data that was built and provided free of charge by other agencies in clear violation of their contract.

Having worked for local government, I understand the need and importance of supporting GIS specialist salaries. Maintaining software, database systems, and analysis comes at a cost; however, double charging through boths taxes and fees for just data that is built freely or at a fraction of the cost is simply unethical.

It's long overdue to open this up. We should be pushing for the same thing in Seattle, which still hasn't provided critical emergency management peer-reviewed data provided freely by multiple federal agencies.

I lend my full support. And will jump off my drunken soapbox now.

- Angie

[Michael McInnis]

I will back the Sierra Club on this one as well.

Although the database (of land parcels) is part of the GIS software, an export to a flat file of that parcel data is a "data product" that is no longer a part of the system.

This is one of my pet peeves that too much government data is controlled by "Vendors" who profit from the data distribution when it (Maps/DEMs) could easily be posted on a public server and downloaded for a nominal fee.

Michael McInnis 6033 44th Ave. N.E. Seattle, WA 98115 206 517-4701