Apr 19, 2007
What happened to Openspaces?
Well it’s been six months since the Ordnance Survey (OS) announced a beta of their Openspaces API and we’ve heard no more? Attendees at the UK Geospatial Mashup event held at the OS last October where treated to a sneak preview – it looked good, a Google Maps like API using OS data (slides are online at the OGC). This is just the kind of service the UK public deserve, and in my opinion, the type of service the OS needs to start providing if they are to fully capitalize on future opportunities and compete in a fast changing market place.
Chinese whispers at the Mashup event last October suggested it would go live within six months…or not at all. Hopefully it’s just around the corner, pending execution, and their CTO joining Google was just a coincidence.
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Archaeogeek
I signed up as a developer to test Openspaces, signed an NDA and all that, got access to the website and forums which were half-finished at the time, then had to spend a month finishing another project. When I got back to Openspaces I looked in on the site, the forum seemed to have disappeared and the site was no nearer being complete (examples for the documentation were missing). I emailed them, and got absolutely no response. Haven’t heard anything since…
Apr 20th, 2007
Jo Walsh
At Open Knowledge 1 in March, Ed Parsons (OS’s ex-CTO) was asked “whatever happened to OpenSpaces” in a Q and A session. He said it had been sandbagged by the OS legal department and was likely never to emerge from
“IP limbo”.
An mp3 including his talk and the question session, is available linked here: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/after
Jun 19th, 2007
Rob
All might not be lost…
http://www.edparsons.com/?p=500
Would be great if it comes off; the ‘peoplesmap’ from xyz has a javascript api and some good UK data…
http://www.peoplesmap.com/
Jul 13th, 2007
Reply to “What happened to Openspaces?”