

City of Vancouver Opens Up City Data - huhtenberg
http://data.vancouver.ca/datacatalogue/index.htm

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anigbrowl
In case you missed it (I did), so has San Francisco - with so many local
hackers this can only be a Good Thing. <http://datasf.org/> \- it was posted
on HN a month ago but sank without comment, so give vijayr his overdue karma:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=772966>

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Afton
Jason Birch, with/for the City of Nanaimo has led the way here for a few
years:

<http://www.jasonbirch.com/nodes/> <http://maps.nanaimo.ca/nanaimomap/>

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Chocobean
not nearly enough information on it as I would like, but it's a start. For now
it's a bunch of csv on stuff like Community Centres and Schools. I'd like to
see hours of operation, directory of phone numbers, link to pictures, link to
maps, link to transit grid...and other things that are useful. But it's a
start.

Locations of public washrooms, fountains, banks, and where one can purchase
transit tickets would be handy for any good-sized city.

~~~
bliving
It's great to see multiple open data formats being supported. But I expected
more "meaty" data, such as:

<http://crimemapping.edmontonpolice.ca>

The cynic in me believes that the police will use this somehow to increase
their funding. But it is great information to get into the hands of citizens.
And it's worth visiting just to see the "don't sue us" click-through
agreement!

But why is it so painful to open up transit data? Are there any good examples
of accessible transit data?

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mrfish
Anybody else in Vancouver suddenly worried that our infrastructure will be
messed with now? Hey World, you know those Olympics in Feb, well here are some
electrical conduits you can fuck up for the event! WTF?

~~~
imack
One could make a similar argument that open source operating systems are
inherently less secure as malicious hackers would know all the weaknesses.

~~~
mrfish
I think it's a matter of perspective. Obviously a product that has a large
open source volunteer base will be more secure because of their ability to
mobilize against security threats. So the City of Vancouver is Open, but not
Open Source because they are not allowing masses amount of people access to
change things. I guess you could say that if we could real time vote to change
city decisions, then it would be open source.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Most open source projects have a leader who decides what additions and changes
to commit. I don't see the City of Vancouver being any different - as long as
citizens have the ability to push changes that the city can then decide to
commit.

