Any follow up to last week's story on Spanish Meteo data?

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi all,

Last week Spanish Meteo announced closing their free FTP service for meteo data http://epsiplatform.eu/content/spanish-meteo-restarts-charging-data

Is anyone of you aware of possible new developments? Has there been a response by AEMET to the resulting critiques?

best,

Ton

ePSIplatform community steward
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Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

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[alberto]

As far as I know there is no formal answer from AEMET.

And I have checked that data are not available.

[Ton Zijlstra]

Mucho gracias Alberto

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Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

t...@tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog

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[Félix Pedrera García]

Dear Ton, 

Thanks for your interest and for signing the petition. Your comment is one of the most liked ones, wise words. 

Last week we sent (by postal) an official written complaint to the Agency, we are supposed to receive feedback in 20 days. Besides of that, we sent an e-mail to an AEMET employee whose contact info was attached to the official press note. She kindly answered saying nothing different from the official note, only that the decision was taken by higher instances. We'll try reach these instances anyway.

Kind regards,

-- 
Félix Pedrera.

[Ton Zijlstra]

Thanks Felix for that update. At ePSIplatform we'll keep following this with interest, especially as it seems to fly directly in the face of a trend towards less charging. See for instance our recent report on charging practices across Europe http://epsiplatform.eu/content/topic-report-charging-practices-open-data-eu . In there you may also find additional arguments to use in your discussions with AEMET and others inside Spanish government. 

best,

Ton

ePSIplatform community steward
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Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

t...@tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog

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[Carlos J. Gil Bellosta]

Thank you for the info. I was looking for a study like that.

The AEMET is not the only public organization charging for data in
Spain. Although it has been in the spotlight recently, there are many
other datasets at the INE (Spanish national statistical office) and
other agencies which are not free.

It should be noted that whereas raw data might be relatively
inexpensive, creating properly cleansed and processed datasets does
cost money. Has anybody thought about the possibility that pubic
agencies may no longer provide expensive datasets if they are forced
to give them away for free?

There is also a "social cost" problem: if agencies would be required
to relase data for free, they might release the worst quality
datasets. The cost of cleansing them would fall on the private sector
and many private agents would be forced to perform this cleansing by
themselves. Wouldn't it lead to economic inefficiencies?

Best regards,

Carlos J. Gil Bellosta
http://www.datanalytics.com


2012/11/5 Ton Zijlstra <t...@tonzijlstra.eu>:

[Ton Zijlstra]

Carlos, all,

The news is not that some public bodies charge for data. The news is that previously available free data is now going to be charged for. 

As to data provisioning: the general notion is that data is published in the way it is being used by the public sector body itself for its intended public task. There is no direct expectation of catering to specific needs when publishing data, leaving that in principle to the re-user. A whole ecosystem of tools and initiatives is growing up around that currently.

If improvement of quality is an issue, than it should be in the context of the public task where the data is used, not in the context of possible re-use.

Unless of course publication of data / information IS the public task. For instance where there is a legal obligation to publish certain information in a certain way.

Poor data quality and reduction of data availability due to costs are straw men in this discussion as far as I am concerned, that do not bear out in reality.

best,

Ton

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Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

t...@tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog

Share your real life open data experiences,

observations and anecdotes:

http://epsiplatform.eu/content/share-your-story

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