This is great, so Thank You Justin. However, while county-at-a-time
"public data freedom" updates posted to talk-us isn't a BAD idea,
once again I think it is incumbent upon OSM in the USA to start
capturing the status (legality, to assuage any ODBL concerns) of
public access to public data on a wiki page as a small project. I
suggest we start statewide table and drill down to county or city
level when known/required to do so.
I'll start (well, reiterate): California has our Public Records Act,
so all GIS data held by a county or city here is available for the
asking. It's as plain and simple as that. No license terms are even
allowed to be attached to it, by that statute and upheld explicitly
by the California Supreme Court.
It may be that the credit due Minnesota (MetroGIS, other states...)
is simply public officials more widely recognizing that public data
are public data: if state law says so (and high court affirms this),
a re-iteration of this by a county agency doesn't make any more true,
but it is good news that this fact have its truthfulness enjoy wider
dissemination.
It is not whether or not a state or county agency "says so" that
makes state's or county's GIS data available (to you, and therefore
OSM, should it be a good idea to upload it), it is the state's public
records law. (Though, it doesn't hurt when a public agency says they
are explicit). Most, if not all states do (or should!) have such
laws. I believe it is a good responsibility of OSMers to determine
these laws (public policies) in all 50 states, and share results. I
believe California's very open (relatively liberal) public records
policy (law) is true in many more states, we (as OSM) just don't know
these explicitly. We should, and we should better communicate them
amongs ourselves.
Let us adjust our attitudes, not putting the cart before the horse:
in the first place, these data belong to us (we, the People), as
state law often explicitly says so. Agencies are not "masters" of
these data, but merely its trustees. That makes us (we, the People)
the data's rightful beneficiaries (and executors). Let us enjoy the
fruits of our labor: the public data we own and pay our agencies to
maintain, whose job it is to produce copies for us as we ask for
them. Free of any licensing terms, as the data are already ours.
SteveA
California
Today, Ramsey County, Minnesota opened its GIS data to the public.
Now access to street centerlines and parcel information is free for
the public to access. The data can be found
here:<http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/is/gisdata.htm>http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/is/gisdata.htm
Cheers,
Justin
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