Public Geodata: campaign test / INSPIRE update

dear freegis list,

The second reading of the INSPIRE Directive establishing a spatial
data infrastructure in Europe in EU Parliament was two months ago. 
The Parliament broadly supported more open public access; restored a 
clause previously removed by the Council guaranteeing public right to
view (though not to download) state geodata holdings free of cost.

Soon a process of 'conciliation' will begin whereby the Council works
out a wording it is happy to send back to the Parliament and thinks it
will get past. This is a shadowy process at best. It would be helpful
to know the stance of each Minister and local environment / advisory 
departments on INSPIRE and public access. 

http://publicgeodata.org/Contact_Your_Minister - if you are in Europe 
please consider doing this: contact the Minister for your country, ask
them whether they support the Parliament's Amendments 21 and 27 and if
not, can they explain why not? There are contact details for many but
not all Ministers - please fill in any you find absent and search for.

Benjamin Henrion and I as "Public Geodata" are sending yet another
Open Letter this time to the Ministers in the Council; draft:
http://publicgeodata.org/Open_Letter_Third_Reading 

This is at a "campaign testing" stage and it would be good to get more
peoples' feedback, e.g. yours, about the letter process, wiki and so on.

INSPIRE could be a good directive establishing a technical framework
and bypassing a policy discussion while guaranteeing some basic public
rights. The legislation process has become about intellectual property
shadowboxing.

Guardian: "So what is INSPIRE, and why is the UK lobbying against it?"
http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=59

http://petition.publicgeodata.org/ <- over 6000 people signed now.


cheers,


jo