Public data corporation: the end of our world or just beginning?

Public data corporation announced by Francis Maude. Photo: Martin Argles/guardian

Announced to Downing Street fanfare Wednesday, is the new public Data Corporation already worrying Community open data-key vote mainly because no one knows what it is.

In writing on his Countculture blog today, says Chris Taggart:

None of the open data activists and developers, which I have spoken to know what it is, or what the real motivation is, and remember these are people who did much to get us into a place where the British Government has stated that the public has a right to the ' Data ', and to the excellent ' open government license "should be standard license.

And Martin Moore Media standards trust tweets today

People the right to be skeptical abt public Data Corporation-says @ countculture http://ow.ly/3DQ9t > supporters of # opendata to get stuck in

Taggart adds that it is important that the announcement comes from BIS, considered to be a little slow on the open data front by human rights defenders:

My sources tell me the proposal in fact originate from BIS, and thus could be seen as an attempt to operators to exploit the sending open data agenda, as a way to close it down, stifle it, if you like

The official release makes it sounds vague, but soothing. Business Minister Edward Davey from BIS, that says:

It will provide stability and legal certainty for companies and entrepreneurs, attract investments these operations must retain their capabilities and drive growth in the economy. It will also provide better value for taxpayers by driving down costs and make the process more efficient

And Francis Maude, champion open data under the Liberal-Conservative coalition Government says that it is about "maximizing the benefits of" opening up public data:

Are faced with a conflict between maximizing revenue from the sale of data and make data freely available to be used for social and economic loss on the current number of government agencies. Create PDC will enable conflicts in at least to be managed consistently to the opening of access and, at best, be eliminated

Mysociety's Tom Steinberg-much a part of the Government's transparency agenda as a member of the public sector transparency Board-wrote, however, on a BULLETIN BOARD, it could go to MySociety either way:

This change could be good or bad … I do not believe the changes, which could be neutral. This is because the current situation is in my opinion so crappy that ' no change ' definitely would be a bad thing.

If you are a natural cynic, you just say the Government has already decided to discuss everything off to the highest bidder. If you take this position, and give up without a fight, will people in Whitehall and trading funds who wish to make it almost certainly win.

But if you believe me when I say things are finely balanced, to either side could win, and enough well-organized external pressure could really make a difference in the next year, so that you don't just bitch, you get the hang of.

I give up on some of my time almost every week in order to fight this battle, and so people like Michael Cross and Charles Arthur [co-founders of free our Data campaign]. But retrieves the PDC to be things hackers need to be will take more than that-it will take real grass-roots pressure, and the pain and happiness.

Computerworld's Glyn Moody is also sceptical or at least agnostic:

[Open data] is actually part of a wider move towards a more transparent, collaborative kind of democracy-and this means seeks input from all interested parties before major decisions. It is particularly important for an organization that calls itself the public Data Corporation: we need to know just how open, and just how public it will really be

Here at Datablog, we will try to get to the bottom of this in the next few weeks. Because it sounds like we need a lot of time. Taggart quit his piece with a call to arms:

We have been perhaps 6 months to make this story, turn out good for open data, and good for the wider society

What do you think?

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