[geo-discuss] [Geodata] Re: Geodata in CKAN and collaboration (was Re: Responding to the consultation on opening Ordnance Survey's data)

[Hamish]

> That menu has to include attribution, share alike and NC.



I think this thread is going nowhere fast, so I'll try to let it
die, but I'd would like to point out a couple of things.


- non-commercial-use licenses are pretty much useless for the
academic world. Today we fund grad students from research
grants, which are generally handled by the university's
technology incubator offices and treated as commercial
contracts. We get a good chunk of our research budget by doing
co-beneficial contracts for government departments. In general
there has been a move, for better or for worse, towards the
corporatization of university management culture, and with
some Univ's like Columbia and John's Hopkins literally making
billions off of research patents it's not hard to see why most
universities would like to get in on the game. That can fund
a lot of other neat research, infrastructure, and scholarships.

So is that grad student or university acting as a non-profit
entity or not? Is the university a business or not? These are
not questions that we humble research scientists can answer,
so these datasets are useless to us. Our lawyers will always
act to protect us legally, and tell us not to touch anything
which might cause problems, even if it means getting no work
done. But that's their job. I see the purpose of no-commercial-
use as non-compete clauses. (which is essentially what the GPL
does too, for whatever that's worth)


- there was a comment that "OpenStreetMap would *never* be used
for scientific work." Well actually just last night I was reading
a newly published (respectable) journal article which credited
OSM as the datasource for one of the figure decorations. Granted
the main OSM dataset wouldn't be much use for analysis unless
you were a sociologist or something, but having it out there and
usable does enhance our ability to communicate other ideas
through better background maps.


- There is absolutely no way I could have done half of the remote
sensing work I did as a grad student without the US's open data
policy. Plain and simple. The US may do this or that, but this
is one area they truly lead the world in, and the world is a
better place for it.


- as the point about offensive "religion" remarks was not taken,
I'll spell it out a bit more clearly. The argument is thinly
veiled code for "your ideas are emotionally based logical goo,
and mine are the One True logical answer." That is rather
insulting to hear. Also I imagine it is rather insulting to any
of the large number of religious folks out there on the list to
have it be insinuated that they are considered fools. So please
stick to arguing logical points instead of resorting to ad
homeinem attacks. If nothing else it turns people off and makes
them ignore any other good points you do make.


- I agree that many people react badly to being told what to do
or how they should conduct a job they are expert in. But
understand that this works both ways.



regards,
Hamish


---

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the
real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
    --Plato