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Bob,<br>
<br>
I spent 5 minutes trying to find Edinburgh council open data but I
didn't find any. The format seems to be a moot point, if they don't
provide permission for use of the documents - or at least they make
them hard to find. <br>
<br>
Once a council recognises the need for open data, I would hope the need
to avoid PDF is self evident - but I suspect it is a false hope. If
they can't figure that simple point out themselves, we could try to
persuade councils to use other formats but it probably will be an
uphill battle... From the little I have seen, councils who have a
dedicated open data website have recognised CSV as the defacto
standard. (But I could be wrong.)<br>
<br>
My personal preferences for distribution are ODF, then CSV, then XML,
then Excel, then PDF. The reason I don't rate CSV as the best is there
is no definitive standard established. ODF is useful - even if I
personally convert it to CSV for my own processing purposes - I can
control the conversion. (Obviously for some things XML is the best,
particularly live streams of data.)<br>
<br>
What I think is lacking is information that describes why open data is
important as a policy. This information is readily available for open
source software, in contrast. It is difficult to address the issue of
data generally, as "data" is such a broad term. (And yes there is
content out there, but it fragmented.)<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Tim<br>
<br>
On 07/06/11 12:39, Bob Kerr wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:455149.31403.qm@web28203.mail.ukl.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
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style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div><span>Do you think that a heatmap of the different formats
released by the councils, with an indication from us of preferred
formats be worth considering. I know that Edinburgh council uses pdf
but I don't have an idea of the status of other councils</span></div>
<div><br>
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<div><br>
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<div>cheers</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bob<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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