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by scorpion032 5035 days ago
One of the core values of any government should be to make available all of it's data freely to all citizens available via API.

Everything being publicly auctioned and the free data available publicly will stop many of the scams of the nature India is going through right now.

I am not sure if any one would, but if someone comes up with a bill that holds the powers-that-be responsible under the "Duty to Report" bill, I would support them.

2 comments

> "make available all of it's data freely" Not "all" the data. Many datasets should not be shared. Good reasons include: a)security reasons b)ecology reasons (don't say where endangered species are) c)personal data d) current trial
IMO the rule should be: release everything unless there are strong arguments, to not release specific data sets. These arguments should be transparent and publicly discussed. Just saying "it affects public security" is not a strong argument. It should be at least said, why exactly it affects the security. However, there are good reasons, to not publish some data sets.
Make all the information accessible but restrict access based on User privileges. If some piece of information like endangered species location is to be known, user must identify himself/herself and then proceed to use the data. Anything happens to the endangered species, you know who all got access to that information. Similarly for other data.
India currently has the so called "right to information" bill. That Bill outlines what information can be withheld. Now using the same bill government should ideally come up with "Duty to report" bill.
> One of the core values of any government should be to make available all of it's data ... [emphasis added]

On reading both this post and the title of this thread, one might be misled into thinking that "it's" doesn't mean "it is".

It's one of my own pet peeves to rightly use its spelling, having been a GrammarNazi myself for a long time.

But I seem to have grown out of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY