Open Data

May I see your license please?

This is an update and summary of the OpenStreetMap license upgrade process from CCBYSA to ODbL. It includes a five-minute process to bring yourself up to speed if you have not heard of the OpenStreetMap license upgrade before.

The OpenStreetMap license change process took another tiny step forward today.  read more »

Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver have joined the municipal open data movement. They show vision in recognizing that providing detailed information about their cities is good for their citizens, the environment and the local economy. They should be feted for their leadership. Thank you, Canadian cities, for believing in Open Data.  read more »

Matt Amos contributed a great plain language summary to Open Data Commons for the ODbL. I'm hoping to see similar documents for the PDDL and for the ODC-By when it comes out of draft.

Rather than waiting, I modified the existing document to draft two new plain language summaries. One for the PDDL and another for the ODC-By draft.  read more »

Nanaimo BC is an early adopter in the growing municipal open data movement. Beautiful Nanaimo is the second largest city on Vancouver Island, which should be built on delicious layers of crumb, icing and chocolate but which is instead sedimentary and volcanic rock. Between publishing open data and the bathtub races, there is a lot to love about Nanaimo, BC.  read more »

Every municipality that is releasing open data is doing the right thing, but some are doing a better job of it than others. Municipalities are new to open data, so these teething pains should be no surprise. The wider open data community is obliged to point out where municipalities are falling down but we are also obliged to point out who is opening their data more effectively.  read more »

Edmontorcouver is a lovely place full of lovely, intelligent, generous people. That is not the tragedy of Edmontorcouver open data.

The mayor of Edmontorcouver realized that it would benefit the people of Edmontorcouver to have good data about their city widely available. That is not the tragedy of Edmontorcouver open data.

Edmontorcouver hosted a wonderful gala to announce the generous release of great quantities of data. That is not the tragedy of Edmontorcouver open data.  read more »

Toronto Rent Bank Zones from the Toronto Open Data Initiative. I've converted the data to gpx to display in OpenLayers over OpenStreetMap data.

You agree to be bound by the terms of the Toronto Open Data License.  read more »

Update: correctly reprojected

Talented and generous OpenStreetMap contributor, Emilie Laffray, was able to reproject the Toronto address data for us! You can see that the location of the addresses agree much better with road placement in OpenStreetMap now.

Those interested in considering this reprojected data can find it:  read more »

Mark Kuznicki hosted the Toronto Open Data Lab at the Toronto Innovations Showcase this week. This was the official launch of dataTO.org, Toronto.ca/open and the release of several open data sets.  read more »

Trent Reznor Gets It. He's been off the script from the perspective of the record companies for years. And he keeps on making music, and he keeps on making a living making music.

He released an album some time ago with a free, no-DRM download. It required an email registration, but enh, I wanted to show my support for his use of open music formats. So I registered, downloaded and enjoy it.  read more »