Rosstat promises to open, but not for free

As I join the Open Data Council of the Government Commission, I regularly attend a large number of data openness and openness activities in general.

I can not boast that there is a lot of interesting things, most often it is a lot of talk in a language far from the common man, but such work on “lobbying for openness” is also needed.
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And today was literally filled with such events. I happened to be in the morning at the Public Council under the Rosstat at which I was invited by Rosstat employees. And in the evening at the Open Data Council.

I will write more about the Council separately, but about Rosstat right now.

As always, there are two news - good and bad.

So the good news .

Rosstat understands best of all what open data is and data in general, they also understand very well. They immediately understood what the Semantic Web, SPARQL, Linked Data and other terms frightening other officials are. They understand very well what needs to be done to convert the data into machine-readable and bring it to the related data.

In terms of understanding, they are unconditional leaders. Here they are just the first who understands so well, surprisingly.

But there is bad news .


It lies in the fact that they are willing to make any effort only if there is funding. At the same time, they promise to open all their bases, indicators of municipalities and everything. But only so that it is all funded from the budget.

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What we will do is not clear yet. Their position is at least more honest than those departments that simply stubbornly resist publication of anything, for example, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but it’s still not good at all.

Since, for some reason, I was called to enter the Public Council under the Rosstat - I will try to ensure that the data is opened regardless of whether they will be given funding or not.

I do not have their presentations, but there is a document with a plan for publishing data for those who are interested.