Initial reactions to UK Government Free OS data proposal

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Posted by ChrisCorbin on 03 Jan 2010

London: 23 December 2009

The UK Department for the Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in parallel with the publication of document titled Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey Consultation published an Impact Assessment titled: Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey – Consultation - Impact Assessment, ISBN: 978 1 4098 2125 0, 28 pages.

The Impact Assessment states that the following options have been considered (Copied from page 4)

“What policy options have been considered? Please justify any preferred option.

Government has proposed to release some Ordnance Survey data for free. This is being considered within three long-term strategic options for Ordnance Survey. Option 3 is preferred at this stage.

Option 1: Maintain current business strategy – continued delivery of the strategy outlined in April 2009, plus consideration of release of OS Free.
Option 2: Release of licensing constraints on large-scale data and release of Ordnance Survey Free.
Option 3: Staged transition from the current strategy – to a model based on more open.”

Public Sector Information stakeholders have started to react to the publication of the Consultation document and the associated impact assessment and include:

31st December 2009 - ThisIsHamprshire.net

Government unveils radical plans for mapping data

29th December 2009- Guardian: Free Our Data Campaign

Fun facts from the DCLG / OS consultation

27th December 2009 - UKauthorITy.com

'Free' OS data may hit local authorities in the pocket

24th December 2009 - The Association for Geographic information (AGI)

CLG's 'Smarter Government' consultation into Ordnance Survey is published

24th December 2009 - The Register

UK government considers open source Ordnance Survey data

23rd December 2009 - Guardian: Free Our Data Campaign

Impact assessment of making OS ‘mid-scale’ data free puts cost at 47m-58m pounds