Yes We Scan!

Yes We Scan! is the attribution Carl Malamud have chosen for his campaign for joining the Government Printing Office of the US Government. His motto is Open Government and I fully support him in his views.

Among the work he has done before include not only talking about the need to make information accessible for everyone, but also to actually do something. He is definitely one of the persons that I know that have done the most. And without giving up. Many things on the Internet he was first with. One of the more interesting stories include the in story Exploring the Internet describing his travel around the world in 1990 and 1991. Specifically, read about his visit to Amsterdam.

He has also been working with making government created resources available for a long time. Public.Resource.Org is probably the most well known of the initiatives.

I have myself during the years been fighting for similar things. In Sweden for example, we have specifically two things that are paid with tax payers money, but well hidden in agencies that charge an arm and a leg for it. But wait, it is not for the information they collect. It is for compiled information. The two things are weather data and map data. People pay via city taxes collection of raw data for maps that have to be reported to Lantmäteriverket, but they can not get the data and create their own maps! No, this have to stop. What is collected and created with tax payers money must be made available. And if that implies that the agencies have to change their mode of operation, so be it. Until that has changed, I am for example using DMI in Denmark for good weather reports over the area of Sweden where I live.

The great seal of the seal of approval