Where's the Open Data?

blamanj asks: "There's a lot of open-source code around, and generally, it's quite easy to find. Finding open source data, on the other hand, can be quite a pain. Why isn't there a common reponsitory for public domain data sets? I'm thinking of things like lists of world cities, dictionaries of stemmed words, population data, etc., etc."

Comments

Re:How 'common' do you need it?

[tswinzig]

Slashdot ought to implement a new filter for its comments section in preferences: Score penalty for reference to Google in Ask Slashdot question.

Unfortunately, most of the Ask Slashdot's are so lame they can be answered with a simple google search.

The editor that posts the Ask Slashdot should first see if he can easily answer the question with a google search before posting the article.