Montreal Tech Watch

Hugh McGuire, of Librivox fame, has launched a new blog called datalibre.ca. The blog is actually in english, and not in french as the name might suggest, and is “lobbying” for free and open access to all data held by the Canadian government. Hugh writes:

datalibre.ca is a group blog, inspired by civicaccess.ca, which believes all levels of Canadian governments should make civic information and data accessible at no cost in open formats to their citizens. The data is collected using Canadian tax-payer funds, and we believe use of the data should not be restricted to those who can afford the exorbitant fees

There is a very interesting presentation done by Hugh about data in the blog, how our ability to manage and digest it is our main advantage in this world, as a human being. He continues by saying that by allowing free and open access to data, we will get more democracy and more solved problems. I really like the idea, but I have yet to see what datalibre is suggesting as an open data format.