INSPIRE and Open Geodata
Making laws in Europe is a quite cumbersome process. The proposal for establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community (INSPIRE) is good example for this. On January 23rd, the European Council formally adopted (pdf, p.23] the common position. Next step will be the second reading by the european parliament. So, now there’s the chance to be a part of the process, instructions can be found here.
But what needs to be changed? INSPIRE is a very reasonable proposal, everybody wants it a soon as possible. But some issues are still not really discussed, for me the major point is the open (and free!) access to the geodata. Geodata has to be free for the public. The common position (pdf) of INSPIRE tells us, that the discovery of services and basic interaction with map services needs to be “available to the public free of charge”. Great! But on the other side, downloading and processing spatial data should cost you something. Now, where’s the difference between viewing and downloading an image in a browser? Here’s a good read about the needed changes, and some more information about the need of open geodata
And if you don’t want to write your local MEP (Member of the European Parliament), why not just sign this petition. If you believe in this sort of things…
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