Internet Inventor to Help Drive UK Open Gov Data
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who helped invent the world wide web, has been asked by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to help open up government information in the UK. This post on the UK Cabinet Office Digital Engagement Blog (yes, their Cabinet has a Digital Engagement Blog), describes how Berners-Lee will be on a team tasked with:
- overseeing the creation of a single online point of access and work with departments to make this part of their routine operations.
- helping to select and implement common standards for the release of public data
- developing Crown Copyright and 'Crown Commons' licenses and extending these to the wider public sector
- driving the use of the internet to improve consultation processes.
- working with the Government to engage with the leading experts internationally working on public data and standards
Who would be the closest Canadian equivalent to Sir Berners-Lee? Are there any Canadian data and standards rock-stars the open government data world could tap into?
Tim Bray, co-inventer of XML?
The notion of "Crown Copyright" is the problem. There is no equivalent in the U.S. The only acceptable development, in my mind, would be to put all government data, with some security exceptions, into the public domain.