Significant parts of Ordnance Survey's digital mapping portfolio are now available to use free online.

The radical change in charging policy at Ordnance Survey is the result of a long-standing drive by the outgoing UK Government to make data of all kinds more accessible to the public. This has forced the Ordnance Survey – traditionally highly protective of the copyright in its maps – to adopt a whole new policy towards its output.

Exactly how the change will affect third-party commercial products is not clear, since the scheme requires the mapping to be publicly available on the Internet (and not restricted by licence or password), and the user-company is not permitted to charge for the application or data. These stipulations to some extent allay concerns that the move might prompt a commercial free-for-all in the mapping world.

The initiative found focus in a statement by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown last November, in which he announced that parts of the OS mapping portfolio would be made freely available as part of the 'Making Public Data Public' initiative.

 

This scheme has some high-profile support, including the backing of no less a person than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, credited with founding the Internet, and Nigel Shadbolt, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Deputy Head (Research) of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.

Now Ordnance Survey has announced a name for the system – OS OpenData – and spelled out exactly what this means in terms of its product range – and also how to get it (a special portal has been built as an annex to the OS Web site).

Mapping covered by the change includes the detailed 1:10 000 scale OS Street View, Boundary-Line, which provides the electoral and administrative geography of the country, and Meridian 2 and Strategi, which offer customisable views of Britain's topography.

There is also a brand new Web mapping dataset, OS VectorMap District. For more information on this and other products affected, see Software Update, page 31.

Communities Secretary John Denham welcomed the launch of OS OpenData saying: 'This shows the UK is at the cutting edge of a digital revolution. The move to free up public data encourages fresh thinking – people re-using information in different and more imaginative ways than may have originally been intended.'

Whether the new coalition Government would have adopted the same approach is not clear, but the change was a fait accompli by the time of the General Election.

According to Vanessa Lawrence CB, director general and chief executive of Ordnance Survey: 'I am pleased that Ordnance Survey data, long recognised as world-class, for currency, accuracy and quality, has been identified as having a fundamental role to play in underpinning the future growth of the *Smarter Government' and *Making Public Data Public' initiatives.'

OS says large numbers of users from the UK and abroad downloaded map data in the first few weeks following its launch. 'Mash-ups' (composite Web sites drawing data from more than one source) and full applications are already appearing, it says. Early applications included a postcode look-up service and maps displaying a range of information available through data.gov.uk, including pharmacies, bus stops and stations.

Whilst the free mapping initiative applies only to OS mapping, and places limits on commercial applications, the move is nevertheless expected to force downward pressure on digital map pricing throughout the market, though the long-term impact has yet to be determined.

Third-party map data suppliers, who are responsible for distributing much of the map data sold to the open market, have already had to rethink their pricing strategies, and are now focusing their marketing message more squarely on the added value of the services they offer.

In reality, many have already been providing a significant added-value service for many years – for instance, tailoring map data file formats for specific software appliciations; dividing or consolidating it; adding geocoding information; and generally smoothing the path towards easy integration with other systems.

The implications of all this will only really become clearer over time.