Mapping Hacks

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Chapter 7, Names and Places

#78 What to Do if Your Government Is Hoarding Geographic Data

HACK

GALILEO on the way, ordinary citizens have the affordable technology and

the free tools outlined in this book to actively contribute to the maps that

describe their world. Open geodata would be a millions-saving boon to

small businesses and local government departments. The latter would have

the means to collect and make sense of metadata about their communities at

a local level.

A principled idealist might argue that national mapping data should be

released under a GPL or ShareAlike license; http://www.ollivier.co.nz/atlas/

freeworldmaps.html makes this case convincingly. But this might prove

unacceptable to large businesses and detrimental to some smaller ones

focused on mapping. It might also widen the gap between public domain

geodata and commercial offerings, in both coverage and intent. That person

who controls the map controls how people perceive the world. If you would

like to own your map, and the government where you live has a restrictive

policy on geodata:

• Formulate a project, a “cool hack,” ideally with an educational and civic

aspect. Write to named members of your national mapping agency,

making the exact scope of what you need clear. If they seem unrecep-

tive, ask if you can come in for a meeting and chat anyway, offering to

share your specialist knowledge.

• Get together with other ...