The struggles of @LilithWittmann to make the Handelsregister of Germany freely available and easily accessible reminded me of our own struggles with different German state-level organizations, trying to get access to open data for rivers and water ways in 2014. 1/
Continue reading “The Pegel Alarm Open Data Challenge (a Thread)”Open Data: Source of Public Income or Invaluable Common Good?
Not surprisingly, this huddling panel at the 2018 Berlin Open Data Day came to no specific conclusion, just different opinions on business models and who should earn what income.
Some nuggets of insight: Leave it to public institutions to decide for themselves — open data should be freely available, otherwise some commercial business models break down — cities should be neutral to startups and establish collaborations for everyone’s benefit — leave it to companies to generate value from open data and they will give back #muwhaha — don’t monetarize open data at all — if users don’t pay, public institutions won’t have the funds to provide open data — open data should be considered public infrastructure and follow established practices — the data belongs to the public anyway — selling data is too expensive for a city.
In related news, some cheap laughs for public institution bashing from one panelist. Personally, I find this less than helpful.
One amusing quote from another panelist:
In theory, we all agree, in practice, we do not.
I guess more sustainability research is needed.
Impressions from the Berlin Open Data Day 2018
If you think it is funny that the German government declares itself a leader in open data, please note that verbally the slide was declared as aspirational rather than current reality.
Continue reading “Impressions from the Berlin Open Data Day 2018”Open Data is Moving, Slowly but Surely
I’ve been participating in various workshops and working groups on open data now. It is hard scrabble, but things are moving. Today I participated in a workshop of the open data task force of Bitkom which I am a member of. The highlight of the day was the participation of Saskia Esken who explained some and handled questions and answers on the new open data for government law that is coming up in Germany.
In related news, the task force finished its open data manifest, a collection of quality attributes of what good open data are and what to ask of providers and the government. A small handbook is in work as well.