Using nothing but open source software, Greece has officially launched its own geo data website. The website has been built by IMIS part of the Athena institute for research and innovation in information, communication and knowledge technologies, in collaboration with and for OKCHE, the Greek cadastral office, and the e-government group of the office of the Prime Minister.

Wherever possible the available data carries a 'by attribution' license.

The Greek site cites four reasons for opening up data: the effective control of government, environmental protection, reducing the waste of government resources, and economic growth and improving competition.

As it says on the website geodata.gov.gr is very much treated as a work in progress (machine translated):

"We know things are missing and try to incorporate as many data administration as possible. This job is more difficult than it sounds. Until recently:

• There was no record of geospatial data is the Public Administration. The Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change has already covered this gap, so we now know who has what!
• There was no clear institutional framework for how the government has data. In fact, some players were selling their geospatial data with cost and permits arbitrarily determined, even to other public administration bodies! In other cases, geospatial data were not available to any third parties other than the very institution which had been purchased. All these distortions repealed the law on "National Infrastructure for Geospatial Information" has been prepared under the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change and signed by the entire Cabinet."

The public is also encouraged to help improve the available data (machine translated):

"In some cases the geospatial data has errors. Unfortunately we can not do anything about it other than to highlight the problems that exist and have accumulated to date. The government procured and produced geospatial data is of poor quality. The law on "National Infrastructure for Geospatial Information" sets the institutional framework that from now on do not make the same mistakes. But geospatial data already exist to be corrected and replaced, will continue to have problems. Here we ask for your help. Whenever you find problems and errors in the data, contact us . Soon we will be able through geodata.gov.gr so you can correct the data itself on the map!"