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In some ways this announcement is typical of the UK government. All spin little substance. All transport information cost lots of money (GBP 50,000 for Train i

by vikram 18y ago

In some ways this announcement is typical of the UK government. All spin little substance. All transport information cost lots of money (GBP 50,000 for Train info), can't even get a free copy to prototype with. None of the Land registry information is available. E.g. Houseprices, etc. The map data released by UK Ordnance Survey is no different than what the other 1/2 dozen map providers have released in the past two years. They again charge thousands of pounds for detailed information like road location, etc. If one wanted to do Everyblock in the UK. It would cost you 100,000 gbp+ to get started. I think it's a good start, but it doesn't go far enough.

simonw 18y ago
The group behind this, the "Power of Information" taskforce, are trying to fix this. They need people to build things against the existing limited set of APIs that demonstrate how important this data is, so they can use that as an argument in getting better data made available under friendlier terms.
- vikram 18y ago
  Simon, I like the work that you guys have been doing. I hope something comes of this. Part of what is disappointing is that until they don't release reasonable amount of data. Forget innovation, nothing will come of it. Case in point is that I'm interested in finding out good schools that my daughter can go to. I've had a look at EduBase. I can't tell if a school is any good or not. Or if they would admit my child or not. I can get more information from http://www.dcsf.gov.uk http://www.dcsf.gov.uk or go to the local council website and download the admissions criteria. Every school has a different admission criteria. Some care about how close you live to the school, some about where you worship or how christian you are. So if you have a child who is close to school going age and you want to work out what is the best school to send him/her to, you need to do lots of leg work. I thought about building such an app. I don't understand what you can do with the address, name of school, pupil age and head teacher name. Isn't it easier to write a crawler for http://www.dcsf.gov.uk http://www.dcsf.gov.uk

by vikram 18y ago

simonw 18y ago

The group behind this, the "Power of Information" taskforce, are trying to fix this. They need people to build things against the existing limited set of APIs that demonstrate how important this data is, so they can use that as an argument in getting better data made available under friendlier terms.

vikram 18y ago
Simon, I like the work that you guys have been doing. I hope something comes of this. Part of what is disappointing is that until they don't release reasonable amount of data. Forget innovation, nothing will come of it. Case in point is that I'm interested in finding out good schools that my daughter can go to. I've had a look at EduBase. I can't tell if a school is any good or not. Or if they would admit my child or not. I can get more information from http://www.dcsf.gov.uk http://www.dcsf.gov.uk or go to the local council website and download the admissions criteria. Every school has a different admission criteria. Some care about how close you live to the school, some about where you worship or how christian you are. So if you have a child who is close to school going age and you want to work out what is the best school to send him/her to, you need to do lots of leg work. I thought about building such an app. I don't understand what you can do with the address, name of school, pupil age and head teacher name. Isn't it easier to write a crawler for http://www.dcsf.gov.uk http://www.dcsf.gov.uk