Talk:Open Data

From Open NZ Wiki

Hello All

Nat, I presume you're aware of Dataversity - a superb community of practice about local government biodata exchange? In this thread http://tinyurl.com/l5bcaz they're doing exactly what you're keen to do with this wiki article! A fair bit of it does revolve around the Nationally Significant Databases (capital letters intended - these are very particular beasts, with dedicated funding) but most of the discussion is exactly the kind of information you're trying to elucidate here.

Isabella

[edit] "The data are not charged for"

The above principle is not clear to me (it depends what we mean by charged for).

Data that aren't "charged for" are charged for via taxes. Perhaps this could point should be changed to read:

"data are not charged for twice*"

This would also remind both sides that the data is not owned by government, but held by government on behalf of New Zealanders.

*However charging for dissemination might well be reasonable if the data is in a format that would cost the organisation to disseminate (e.g. photocopying old paper copies).

See sections 48-9 of the NZGOAL for corresponding content.

Matt Lane 21:58, 31 August 2009 (UTC)