[Freegis-list] Where's the money in GIS?

[Allan Doyle]

On Jan 4, 2006, at 07:21, Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> Am  4. Jan 2006 um 09:12:59 schrieb Arnulf Christl:
>> Adam wrote:
>>> I was wondering if people on this list would share where they  
>>> think the
>>> money is in GIS?
>
>>> Selling Public Data Sets?
>>
>> Does not make sense as it has already been funded and now should be
>> understood as collective property. The old German term "Allmende"
>> describes this best: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allmende. Pity  
>> it does
>> not translate well into English. Anybody any suggestions?
>
> It translates nicely as common good, common land
> or commons as in "The tragedy of the Commons".
> This is why I believe the comparison is bad:
> With data that can be copied without loss, the tragedy is missing.

Who needs tragedy?! The commons is the correct term. Even better if  
the data can be reused without tragedy.

The idea of a geographic data commons has been around for a little  
while at least. You can see some initial materials here http:// 
www.spatial.maine.edu/geodatacommons/


-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org