Updated Agenda for Ordnance Survey
Housing Minister Iain Wright made the announcement of a new strategy for the Ordnance Survey aimed at enhanced ease of use and licensing of geodata.
Some things will remain the same: the Ordnance Survey will continue to be self-funded and earn revenue by licensing its data. But there are five areas that will change, though details of how are still unclear:
Promoting innovation – with an enhanced free service to allow experimentation with digital information and a clear path from this service to greater commercialisation;
Reforming Ordnance Survey’s licensing framework – so that it is much simpler to use Ordnance Survey data and services in other applications;
Reducing costs over time – to ensure that Ordnance Survey continues to offer value-for-money;
Supporting the sharing of information across the public sector – to enable better public policy and services;
* Creating an innovative trading entity – to explore further commercial opportunities around Ordnance Survey data and services.
The first thing the public will see is an updated OS OpenSpace (the free for non-commercial use API to OS data) May 12.
