On Monday 12 October 2009 13:23:44 Harry Metcalfe wrote: > I really disagree with this too. Is the Government subsidising > commercial operations when councils collect their rubbish? >
Don't you have to pay for trade waste collection, or at the very least for some services of that nature? > > It doesn't really matter what the controls are. *That is is so > controlled* is the bad thing. Getting Government to pay for it is merely > a practical way of getting it into the public domain. That's the > principled argument. > > The pragmatic argument is that it's better economics for postcode data > to be free to all. More people will innovate, more people will create > things, more value will be generated. If you make it free for > non-commercial use only you lose a large portion of that value. It > almost defeats the point (but not quite). > > The only reason we're advocating a special licence for not-for-profits > is that *right now* it's the thing that we can most plausibly accomplish > that will do some good. > > If we waltz into the Royal Mail and ask them to make postcode data free, > for all, forever, and gut the multi-million pound postcode reselling > industry in the process, we'll be laughed out of the room. > I'm not so sure about arguing to give the data free to the private sector, but then, the *postcode reselling industry*? It's not an industry - it's not creating anything - it's just a rent seeker that exists because it's so bloody annoying to get hold of postcodes. There's only a business there because of the artificial inefficiency RM's created. We would all be richer without this "industry".
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