I agree. A lot of times the contractor who built the system will either (a) see the value in the data, and put in a clause walling it off, or (b) try to obfusca

I agree. A lot of times the contractor who built the system will either (a) see the value in the data, and put in a clause walling it off, or (b) try to obfuscate the data so it's not easy to get to, so that they'll get more money to free the data. SF's MUNI had a huge mess on its hands with the whole NextBus thing. Eventually the developers prevailed, but this is SF, where you can't throw a stone without hitting some developer. Imagine the situation in not so tech-heavy cities.