Date published: 2009/06/12
The BBC says:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has told the BBC that the job he has been given by Gordon Brown is an important one that goes beyond party politics.
The inventor of the world wide web has been asked by the prime minister to help open up access to government data.
"I think there's a public demand for transparency. This is way beyond party politics and beyond global borders," Sir Tim said.
He said taxpayers' money paid for the data so it should be available to them.
Well, good luck to him, but it will be amazing if he gets anything substantive to happen on this front. For example, the Ordnance Survey has completely digitised their maps of the UK. Will that data be made public (for free)? Or only the inconsequential data that some civil servant can dredge up from some filing cabinet somewhere? The OS has for years charged exorbitant amounts for their mapping data, which is why google rules the world on maps, even for the UK.
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