Public Data

The Geological Survey have recently changed the nature of their data release policy. Basically, its all free now, as opposed to before when they charged for it.

This is great, and is a trend I hope happens more. There has been a tendancy in recent years for government (or perhaps more accurately, the Dept. of Finance) to insist that agencies of the state make commercial revenues from the provision of data or services. The problem of course is that generally, these data or services have already been paid for by the tax-payer.

The result, is that the "public-services" version of these services gets dumbed down in order to make the commecial version more attractive.

A good example of this is the weather forecast available on the meteireann.ie web site. Todays reads as follows:

"Dry, bright and warm this evening with sunshine during the early evening."

Hardly comprehensive. Met Eireann of course also offer the weather dial service, where you can get a much more detailed forecast - at a cost of €1.75 per minute. Obviously from a commercial standpoint it does not make sense to place detailed weather forecast on their website at this would undermine the weatherdial service.

There are a range of issues here not least is when should a public good service be charged for? It could be argued that for some industries, such as the fishing industry, the provision of accurate weather data should be made as readily available as possible. The GSI in making their data are throwing into sharp focus the charging policies of other agencies, such as the Ordinance Survey of Ireland, who have an aggressive charging policy.

For me, the key issue is the generation of content from state sources. Over on her blog Karlin Lillington has pointed out that there is still a huge lack of demand for broadband services in Ireland. A key reason for this is the lack of interesting content available to Irish consumers.

The state, through its institutions is a huge source of content that isn't been made accessible.