Mapping Hacks has a report on the Forum on Open Geodata that took place earlier this month (see previous entry), where the argument was put forth that the Ordnance Survey should open up its data for the economic spinoff benefits it would engender. This is a departure from the usual arguments one hears from open-whatever advocates (“data wants to be free”) who sometimes sound like they expect entities to act against their own self-interest or else.

Another point raised at the forum: open mapping provides low-density data that can’t compete with the Ordnance Survey’s precision, but that precision isn’t always needed. Open mapping (see previous entry) has a niche, in other words.

Meanwhile, online mapping may soon render the whole open-mapping vs. Ordnance Survey conflict obsolete: online mapping suppliers neatly sidestep the Ordnance Survey’s copyright, but, if Google Maps’s extensibility, well documented here, is any indication, webservices based on online mapping sites would blow free mapping projects out of the water too.