OzHub, the Macquarie Telecom-led cloud computing alliance, has come down firmly on the side of Optus over the copyright controversy surrounding Optus TV Now, warning that any moves to change the law "risk branding Australia a global luddite state."
Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner is looking for new ideas from the local Web 2.0 community with the launch of a new competition - MashUp Australia – seeking new applications for Government data.
MashUp Australia is the second Government 2.0 competition to be
launched in this country in a month, after NSW Premier Nathan Rees
launched the state’s $100,000 APPS for NSW competition.
Mr Tanner said the competition, which is being conducted by the
Government 2.0 Taskforce he appointed in June, aimed to encourage new
and innovative uses for public information, and would help to drive the
move within government toward more open access to information.
Through the Mashup Australia competition, Mr Tanner’s Finance
department has quietly launched a beta version of data.australia.gov.au
– a website repository to public sector data sets, with most licensed
under the Creative Commons – Attribution 2.5 Australia (CC-BY) license.
Some 15 Commonwealth agencies have released data through the website,
with data sets ranging from federal electoral boundaries from the
Australian Electoral Commission to the location of Centrelink offices
around Australia from Human Services.
Importantly however, the data.australia.gov.au site has also tapped the
Digital Economy Group within the Online Communications Council – the
grouping of state and federal communications and IT ministers – to
include significant numbers of data sets from various state governments.
"This contest allows government to tap into the wealth of ideas and experience in Australia’s online community," Mr Tanner said.
"At the same time it provides an opportunity for innovators to showcase
their ideas and potentially be rewarded for their efforts."
The state government data set collections start to get closer to the
citizen-centric services – ranging from location data for services
ranging from boatramps in Victoria to public BBQ's in the ACT. They
also boast a number of environmentally-focused data sets, like water
consumption by suburb in Melbourne.
The Mashup Australia competition includes a $10,000 first prize for
"Excellence in Mashing" and includes a series of minor prizes for a
variety of categories, including Best Student entry and People’s Choice.
The contest is open from 7 October to 6 November 2009. More information can be found here.
David Frost
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