[LINK] itNews: 'Google slams states over tight grip on data'

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Tom Koltai <tomk at unwired.com.au> wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au
>> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Roger Clarke
>>
>> [There's a significant difference between "make public data
>> available" and "barring [other organisations and individuals] from
>> public transport data", on the one hand, and "tipping data into [one
>> particular company's databases]" on the other.
>><SNIP>
>
> There may be a difference, but I don't see the data being made available
> to Yahoo or Microsoft maps either.
> Google bashing is a popular pastime in which I occasionally enjoy an
> indulging moment; however Noble has a point.

Not by any fault of Google; Bing and Mapquest have transit data
programs and the Google Transit partnership process strongly
encourages making the data available publicly and openly licensed
through announcing it on a special mailing list and listings in
directories like citygoround.org

It should also be noted that the "emergency services heart-tugger"
case (Google Crisis Response) is run by Google.org, the humble
"Technology-Driven Philanthropy" arm of Google. They too remind
scaredy-cat governments that open is good - especially where there is
still petty infighting over things like bushfire spatial intelligence
but also because your beautiful Flash/Silverlight visualisation will
be next to useless in a real emergency.