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And they've made it even more difficult over the past few years. I had written a script that would scrape BoM's page and send the up-to-date conditions via MQTT

And they've made it even more difficult over the past few years. I had written a script that would scrape BoM's page and send the up-to-date conditions via MQTT but it stopped working a few years ago. IRIC, even changing the HTTP headers/user-agent prevented it from ever working again. That said, I understand it's absolutely their prerogative and they have a right to make money from the data.

markdown 4y ago
> they have a right to make money from the data. I thought it was a govt service. BOM is private?
- zinekeller 4y ago
  You'll be surprised that the free-for-all-no-questions-asked US system is not the one followed around the world. Australia, like other countries with significant British history, has the concept of Crown Copyrights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#Australia). Whether it's the (UK) Met Office (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data/met-office-data-for-reuse https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data/met-office-data-f...), (Australian) BoM (https://reg.bom.gov.au/business-solutions/ https://reg.bom.gov.au/business-solutions/) or (NZ) MetService (https://metraweather.com/ https://metraweather.com/), commercial use is paid-for. Personal use is implied to be free, but usually they interpret using their API to be commercial use.
  - thejosh 4y ago
    That being said, and I agree with all points you raised, the Australian Gov has been fantastic over the last few years of focusing on open data, to give credit where it's due. https://data.gov.au/search https://data.gov.au/search Their datasets are great! G-NAF for example: https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-19432f89-dc3a-4ef3-b943-5326ef1dbecc/details https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-19432f89-dc3a-4ef3-b943-5...
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      To be fair, from looking at the available datasets of different countries, it seems that weather data tends to be the one requiring business-level licensing. There are exceptions like Norway's Met (https://api.met.no/ https://api.met.no/) and US' NOAA (too many to list), but unfortunately the usual answer for "weather data?" is "pay first".
    - Humphrey 4y ago
      Totally, there are full 3d scans of Launceston available. It's amazing what data you can access!
  - andylynch 4y ago
    Quite correct- though the UK Met Office has a specific non-commercial API in DataPoint which is pretty good.
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      Oh, didn't knew about that despite checking out their website, but reviewing the licence you're correct in saying that commercial use requires payment.

markdown 4y ago

> they have a right to make money from the data. I thought it was a govt service. BOM is private?

zinekeller 4y ago
You'll be surprised that the free-for-all-no-questions-asked US system is not the one followed around the world. Australia, like other countries with significant British history, has the concept of Crown Copyrights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#Australia). Whether it's the (UK) Met Office (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data/met-office-data-for-reuse https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/data/met-office-data-f...), (Australian) BoM (https://reg.bom.gov.au/business-solutions/ https://reg.bom.gov.au/business-solutions/) or (NZ) MetService (https://metraweather.com/ https://metraweather.com/), commercial use is paid-for. Personal use is implied to be free, but usually they interpret using their API to be commercial use.
- thejosh 4y ago
  That being said, and I agree with all points you raised, the Australian Gov has been fantastic over the last few years of focusing on open data, to give credit where it's due. https://data.gov.au/search https://data.gov.au/search Their datasets are great! G-NAF for example: https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-19432f89-dc3a-4ef3-b943-5326ef1dbecc/details https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-19432f89-dc3a-4ef3-b943-5...
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    To be fair, from looking at the available datasets of different countries, it seems that weather data tends to be the one requiring business-level licensing. There are exceptions like Norway's Met (https://api.met.no/ https://api.met.no/) and US' NOAA (too many to list), but unfortunately the usual answer for "weather data?" is "pay first".
  - Humphrey 4y ago
    Totally, there are full 3d scans of Launceston available. It's amazing what data you can access!
- andylynch 4y ago
  Quite correct- though the UK Met Office has a specific non-commercial API in DataPoint which is pretty good.
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    Oh, didn't knew about that despite checking out their website, but reviewing the licence you're correct in saying that commercial use requires payment.