The UK government has announced plans to adopt Creative Commons licences for the use of government open data.
UK Adopts Creative Commons Licence for Open Data
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government data
Thanks for posting this. I was reminded of hearing a couple of months ago that the city of Vancouver in Canada had made all of their municipal data open to the public (http://data.vancouver.ca/index.htm). (Eg to create an application that alerts residents by email the night before garbage pickup, depending on your neighborhood.) The terms of use state that Vancouver “grants you a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose.” It makes sense for government data to be available to the populations that the government represents, and for people to be able to use that data. A reasonable license makes it easier for us all to use that data responsibly.
Seconded!
This is something all levels of government, from municipal to provincial to federal, ought to be adopting in due course. It might even kickstart the economy so more of us can earn an honest living!