This is a pretty big deal, if it goes through. It means free-even-for-commercial-use mapping data for the whole of the UK, rather than having to pay royalties

This is a pretty big deal, if it goes through. It means free-even-for-commercial-use mapping data for the whole of the UK, rather than having to pay royalties to the Ordnance Survey or guess what Google considers acceptable use of their API. There's another gem nestled in the article: "It is thought transport providers, such as train, tube and bus companies, will lose the right to demand a hefty fee from companies such as independent travel websites and firms devising programs for mobile phones, who want to publish such information." The wording is a bit unclear, but it seems to suggest the UK Government will pressure transport companies to lower their license fees for data about public transport services. That would be a bonanza for any number of exciting startups. (For example, there's a journey planner website for trains across the country, but it doesn't know about other forms of transport. In London there's a journey planner for all modes of transport, but it doesn't go outside London. Bus routes, for example, are mostly available only as unscrapeable PDFs. It would be incredibly convenient to have a single service that could just get you from A to B by whatever means.)