

EU mandates that public sector information be shared as open data - benwerd
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1524

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rmc
To expand, in the USA most (all?) of the data produced by the US Federal
government is public domain (things like map data, nasa results etc.). In EU
this is not the case. As a result lots of governments, say, map the country
using tax payer money, then charge for access to this data. You can't make
mashups or derived works.

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rospaya
> To expand, in the USA most (all?) of the data produced by the US Federal
> government is public domain

I doubt it's all, since there's a lot of confidential stuff in there.

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russell_h
As far as I know, classified information is in the public domain, but simply
isn't released. Its basically equivalent to a trade secret.

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nemoniac
The EU is making some surprisingly good decisions lately when it comes to
matters such as data and "intellectual property". I'm glad to be living here.

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twelvechairs
Whilst this is positive, first we have to see that it is just a 'strategy',
not an enforceable policy (i think the title of this article as 'EU mandates'
is slightly misleading). Secondly, as a 'strategy', it is missing any pointed
reference to the difficult issues - for instance QANGOs, which often hold much
information that has been government funded, however can be resistant to
releasing their data - sometimes for good reasons...

The idea is, of course, a good one - lets hope it filters down into real
positive action soon....

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NonEUCitizen
How do we get the UN to free up its data as well?

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zbuc
The article doesn't really say what kind of information this would affect...

Would this remove research articles from public universities from paywalls?

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benwerd
Sadly, I don't think it extends to universities, although there's also work
being done there in some European countries.

I think it's mostly government services. Although, as archives and museums are
included to an extent, I could be wrong about this.

