We've got the answers to the other questions we submitted, predictably vague but useful nonetheless (for campaign quotes, and just in building up the pressure to do something). You can read the questions and responses on Hansard, but I particularly like the look of this bit:

For central government bodies other than trading funds, the clear policy is that raw information should, subject to any statutory provision, be freely available or provided at the marginal cost of dissemination.

That's good to know, and backs up the Green Party's case for making it accessible as well, e.g. Parliamentary procedure in an open, machine-readable format rather than plain HTML, or key data on domestic energy use in one place as a canonical source rather than being scattered across different sections of government departments (Defra, BERR, CLG, etc.)

There's a nice piece in the Guardian today summarising recent developments, well worth a look. It would be nice if we could supply those guys with a decent set of OpenStreetMap graphics for use in articles rather than using non-free sources too!

The Government has responded to the first of several questions I drafted for Tim Beaumont, the Green member of the House of Lords. We want to pile on the pressure so that the Labour Government takes the report they commissioned seriously, and to find out if they intend to act on any specific parts. One very general question - asking "whether they intend to make the Ordnance Survey's MasterMap available free of financial or legal restrictions" - got this response:

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): As announced in the Budget, the Government will look closely at public sector information held by trading funds including Ordnance Survey, to distinguish more clearly what is required by government for public tasks and ensure that this information is made available as widely as possible for use in downstream markets. In the lead up to the next spending review, the Government will ensure that information collected for public purposes is priced so that the need for access is balanced with ensuring that customers pay a fair contribution to the cost of collecting this information in the long term. In the mean time Ordnance Survey will continue to generate the revenue it requires to cover its costs, to fund investments and to provide a return to government, from sales of paper mapping and from licensing use of the Crown copyright and Crown database rights in its data, including OS MasterMap.

So no surprises there, but the spending review is definitely a good campaign target. If the Government took their own research seriously, and approached Ordnance Survey's funding a little more creatively (e.g. with land registry surcharges), then communities like OpenStreetMap would be able to open up hugely beneficial opportunities. Expect a report from the Green Party on this whenever I get the time to finish it off!

I've been setting up the toolchain for Mapnik on our new fully managed internet server at work. We're hopefully going to make quite extensive use of OpenStreetMap for at least two projects in the near future: One Planet Living in Sutton and The Laundry, our company who do office recycling in London.

So far I've managed to render some pretty large images of specific areas in London, including this rather large render of the whole city (5000x3856px, 20MB). The docs on the wiki aren't the easiest to follow, but I'm looking forward to playing with the styles, adding clickable points of interest, and providing specific maps for public transport, cycling, pedestrians etc. in Sutton.

I've also been out and about mapping bits of London, including getting Rachel really enthusiastic about mapping the area where she lives. I've taken advantage of the unseasonably sunny weather to map Burgess Park (I love doing parks in lots of detail), part of Clapham with Rachel, and more cycle routes & cycle parking whenever I'm on the move. I'm particularly glad to have sought out some public cycle parking around the Houses of Parliament, mostly you're greeted with warnings about cycles being nicked by the police but for the record the best place is down Millbank next time you're popping into the Commons!

My fringe session on free software and data went well last night, we discussed the issues, possible policy and campaigns on what is a pretty niche subject. My cause was helped by the organisers using OpenStreetMap's coverage in the conference pack to show people how to get around - a nice treat for me since I helped map this area!

I started out by describing why Greens should care about "intellectual property", touching on the potential for free information to empower communities, taking control from centralising corporations to promote small and medium-scale social enterprise and exploring/defending/deepening alternative property forms such as the commons; also classical environmental concerns like the availability of data and research on climate change, e-waste created by Microsoft Vista's upgrade cycle, and so on.

I then introduced some context, namely:

• How Greens led the fight against software patents;
• Our policies promoting free software and access to information, also captured in various places in our manifesto;
• The amazingly successful media campaign against Microsoft Vista;
• Our collaboration on the free software, free society open letter promoting free software;
• Commentary and opposition to the Windows-only and DRM-full BBC iPlayer platform.

Participants fleshed out various ways of looking at the problems, including: open access scientific journals, and the comparative cost of open access versus paid access models; the quality of data available; the formats and standards in which data is made available; legal and technical restrictions on data; working cultures that lead to these problems and a general culture of excessive centralisation & restriction. So quite comprehensive!

Two nice practical ideas came out, which was a relief...

First, access to electoral data including boundaries (wards, constituencies, etc.), election results (that vary in format and quality across council web sites) and the postcode database. In Brighton, Jason Kitkat wanted to set-up a "who is your councillor" web page but couldn't because of the post codeissue. We could talk to people like ORG, mySociety, the British Computer Society, OKFN and others to represent this issue to the Electoral Commission. A bit dorky, perhaps, but maybe an easy win?

The second is to see if we can convince someone in a council that we have some political power in - i.e. Brighton, Lewisham, Norwich or Oxford - to assist OpenStreetMap more directly. For example they could notify OSM volunteers when streets, amenities etc. are created or change.

I'm hoping to turn a list of email addresses into a working group, with a view to submitting a policy motion in the Autumn conference and developing those campaigns in the meantime. Fingers crossed, stay posted!

We've been making progress on cycling routes and facilities in south London:

I've been putting cycle parking in on my route to & from work. My technique is pretty simplistic - memorise the positions of three or four as I cycle through, then quickly stick them in when I arrive! There are absolutely loads, though, in Streatham so it's going to look quite cluttered when I'm done.

The Wandle trail was mostly mapped by others but I cycled down it about a month ago to fill in some gaps and improve the actual River Wandle in places. The same goes for route 22 in the London Cycle Network, I've done it all from Peckham Rye Common up to Old Kent Road and now I see somebody has finished it up to the river.

All in all, south London is starting to fill out nicely. I'm just having trouble motivating myself to do any significant mapping lately, especially when it means going on a bit of a mission through a dirty noisy city to follow a poorly signposted cycle route!

The Green-EFA Alliance have put together this silly little video as part of the I wouldn't steal campaign. The Greens have been leading the fight against laws that protect multinationals' profits at the expense of ordinary citizens, and artists who create those films. Here's the vid:

A cabal met up this Wednesday and so the free art show is definitely going to happen, hooray! The best kind of Green politics - combine a practical celebration of your ideals with some alternative propaganda and persuasion. I need to get on with mapping the rest of the area around the gallery on OpenStreetMap. Then I can produce public transport maps to convince those dafty North Londoners that it's not that difficult to reach Old Kent Road :).

Had a lovely Christmas and New Year and got reflecting on what I've achieved in 2007 outside of my job. Except for some good media work for the Green Party on free software issues, and keeping up my commitments for People & Planet and KDE, I've mostly dithered about not really making good ideas happen. So here's what I'm planning to get up to in the following year:

• Organise a Free Culture art show - I've got an offer of a space on Old Kent Road, now I just need to gather together the bods to make it happen;
• Become a Sustrans Ranger for part of the Wandle Trail in London;
• Get a decent Green Party campaign going on free software and free data;
• Join a south London choir and get singing again;
• Get on with the economics reading group I'm doing with friends to broaden and deepen my knowledge;
• Map around Wandsworth Road station area with my wonderful lady;
• Meet more nice people in my area to avoid having to travel so far to see old friends or sitting around lonely.

Since it's Sunday, go to OpenStreetMap.org and type into the search box "pubs near East Dulwich". Or, for the sober and devout, you might like to try "churches near East Dulwich". I'd completely forgotten how flexible David Earl's excellent search tool was :)

I can't wait for OpenStreetMap to be integrated into Marble. It will be interesting to see when other free software projects start using OSM rather than proprietary providers like Google and Multimap, especially now that we have complete street maps for the Netherlands.

Back from a short break in Snowdonia, where I enjoyed a collection of Walt Whitman poetry ("Undrape! You are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded"), Evelyn Waugh's bitterly tragi-comic A Handful of Dust, Cadwalader ice creams, little mapping sorties in Criccieth, the UK's finest landscapes and particularly fine weather - occasional clouds make for happy walks and dramatic photos:

More from the dept. of maps that nobody else has (nyahhh).

Here is a map of East Dulwich Estate, yet again absent from most maps. The A-Z incorrectly calls it "Dog Kennel Hill Estate", which is the name of the main road it's on, and shows Albrighton Road without the footpath break in the middle, whilst most others show nothing at all! If only the software that rendered this image would show the estate name and be a bit neater :)

I've also started adding cycling data. Sustrans have a really awful online map service, whilst Transport for London and the London Cycling Campaign have produced some decent paper maps (that irritatingly lack any route numbers!) A chap in the OpenStreetMap community has produced this great cycle map with negligible fuss! So far I've been on a 40 mile bike ride with a mate to do a national cycle route through London, and doddling around my neck of the woods to start adding bits in:

I've been having lots of fun on my new Specialized bike that I got from this jolly nice workers' co-op in Brixton. I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks now, I hope to get some more estates finished before I go walking in Snowdonia, which is just going to be bliss after a summer in London!