Monthly Archives: April 2016

3 posts

Boundless enthusiasm needs moderation

There is a bit of a rant coming, but before I start I want to get out a couple of disclaimer bits. There is nothing wrong with building a business on open source and nothing wrong with making profits from open source or paying peoples’ wages through it. I have written about the business of open source before. I am closely associated with Astun, a UK business that supplies products and services built on OSGeo […]

Why OS refuses an exemption request

A few weeks ago I wrote about Ordnance Survey’s response to my FoI request regarding data exemptions and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised at the high proportion of requests that were granted. The FoI response left a gap as far as I was concerned so I asked a follow up question “You state that refusals were because OS “considered the risk of release of the dataset, to OS or our partners, outweighed the positive […]

GIS is not a profession (and other less controversial observations)

Today I did a Q&A with the Early Careers Network of the AGI. Much of it was fairly uncontroversial stuff about career plans in GI and some trends. My main focus was on choosing a good employer that provides opportunities, career progression and growth rather than being too worried about how much GI you were going to do. Somehow I slipped in the proposition that GI was not a profession and the future would be about […]