Data.gov To Launch In May

An anonymous reader writes "In late May, Data.gov will launch, in what US CIO Vivek Kundra calls an attempt to ensure that all government data 'that is not restricted for national security reasons can be made public' through data feeds. This appears to be a tremendous expansion on (and an official form of) third-party products like the Sunlight Labs API. Of course, it is still a far cry from 'open sourcing' the actual decision-making processes of government. Wired has launched a wiki for calling attention to datasets that should be shared as part of the Data.gov plan, and an article on O'Reilly discusses the importance of making this information easily accessible."

Comments

Vivek did a good job with this in DC

[ZX-3]

This will also be an extension of what Vivek Kundra implemented in DC:
http://data.octo.dc.gov/

Re:Vivek did a good job with this in DC

[garcia]

I am impressed with the data made available there in one location. I have done a lot of work with county criminal complaints mapping; SHP to KML for state, county, and local parks; and restaurant inspection reports for the general area around my home because it's difficult for the average person to get that information in a package that's useful to them.

It's absolutely fucking awesome to see that other areas are taking the time, effort, and dollars to make data available to those who pay for its creation in the first place. If anything, the Federal Government should mandate that all states funnel that data to them for display to the citizens in one place. There is absolutely no reason why data shouldn't be in one consistent format and in one place for us to pull down to aggregate ourselves if we so choose.

I for one welcome our data providing overlords.

Navigation

[theArtificial]

Hopefully this will not be like navigating the maddening Library of Congress website.