Comments on: Information Sharing We Can Believe In

By: Transparent Text Symposium: Day 1 | The Noisy Channel

Transparent Text Symposium: Day 1 | The Noisy Channel — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:38:04 +0000

[...] to particular interest groups. This is very much what I had in mind in January when I posted “Information Sharing We Can Believe In” and I’m glad to see tangible progress. I was never a big fan of faith-based [...]

By: ACM Recommendations on Open Government | The Noisy Channel

ACM Recommendations on Open Government | The Noisy Channel — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:45:53 +0000

[...] advocated for such openness myself, and I delighted that the ACM, which represents the concerns of me and [...]

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:35:42 +0000

Sure, that’s exactly the distinction I have in mind. Make the raw data free, and let people compete–and try to make money if they’d like–in the ways they add value to it. But don’t limit access to the raw data. The distinction between “data” and “information” is often in the eye of the beholder–or in pitch of the person trying to sell the latter for a higher price.

This earlier post might shed some more light on what I have in mind:

http://thenoisychannel.com/2008/12/16/making-government-information-more-accessible/

As for the OCLC debate, I have tried to keep track of it. But that is a debate among private entities. Important as it is, it doesn’t carry quite the same weight as giving a country’s citizens access to public government data.

By: Mark Watkins

Mark Watkins — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:49:53 +0000

It might be worth making the distinction between “data” and “information”. Perhaps “data”, raw facts, produced with tax dollars should be freely available, insofar as it can be cheaply and efficiently made available by the government, whereas “information” or “meaning” or “insight”, produced by interesting algorithms and/or search interfaces, might remain proprietary.

Also interesting to note the rather loud (and important) debate going on relative to Library Catalog records and who owns the catalog(s) of the world’s book data – seems highly relevant to this discussion – a good place to start if you are interested is the LibraryThing blog: http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2009/01/library-social-media-wins-one.php

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:30:04 +0000

At least part of my business involves selling software to clients who sell information. So the fact that the information isn’t free does help pay my mortgage, albeit through a few levels of indirection.

By: Daniel Lemire

Daniel Lemire — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:49:26 +0000

Free information and making a living only oppose themselves if you sell information for a living.

Which business are you in?