Amazing -- anyone fancy doing a quick write up for blog.okfn.org? J.
On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:45 PM, P Kishor <[email protected]> wrote: > Of interest > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Nikos Alexandris <[email protected]> > Date: Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 10:33 AM > Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Greece follows INSPIRE (and attempts to go OpenGeo?) > To: OSGeo Discussions <[email protected]> > > > Greetings to the list. > > (Apologies to the BCC-ed recipients since this might or might not be of your > interest) > > The Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change [1] (yes, you > read correctly) has decided to (finally) put on a public discussion the law > that concerns a national infrastructure for (geo)spatial data [2]. > > It appears to be just a "normalisation" of the current Greek law-framework to > match (or catch up) the European directive INSPIRE. And indeed, it may be the > driving force behind it within the current Greek mess (no matter how far this > mess is real or virtual for the sake of "let's make money"). > > There are, however, chances to broaden the spectrum of this new law to clarify > important issues. For example, the license of geospatial data will be provided > cost-free but with the limitation for non-commercial use. My understanding is > that this limitation is not only needless but anti-productive in many ways > [3]. > > Another example is the focus of the law to be passed more on the > organisational aspect of the infrastructure (with lots of limitations) and in > a lesser extent to the social aspect(s) and effects which are of paramount > importance [4]. > > Noteworthy to mention is the difficulty when translating special technical > terms from English in Greek which leads often to non-clear definitions. There > are various comments on the "Definitions" section [5]. > > This is just a glimpse of course of the total 31 articles which compose the > law. All in all, the law is on the right track. Yet, it needs fine tuning to > prohibit misuse. > > One thing that is not positive, at least from my perspective, is(=was) the > narrow time-window (only 10 days) for which the law is open for public > comments. Unfortunately, I did not notice this until yesterday. Today > 30.06.2010 at 23:59 (local time) the comments section will be locked :-( > > Nevertheless, this move is a ground-breaker considering how Greek governments > (re-)acted in the past. It is a clear sign of several people willing to go > Open(Geo). > > Please, readers that (understand Greek and) are interested in this, or readers > that know people that (understand Greek and) work in this field, comment... > comment... comment... (...typical Greek, just climb to the top or touch down - > no in between solutions). > > Thank you for your attention, > Nikos > > --- > [1] <http://www.ypeka.gr/> > [2] National Infrastructure for Geospatial Data > <http://www.opengov.gr/minenv/?p=757> > > [3] <http://www.opengov.gr/minenv/?p=737> > [4] <http://www.opengov.gr/minenv/?p=756> > [5] <http://www.opengov.gr/minenv/?p=754> > > _______________________________________________ > okfn-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss > -- Jonathan Gray Community Coordinator The Open Knowledge Foundation http://blog.okfn.org http://twitter.com/jwyg http://identi.ca/jwyg _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
