Leif has a thought-provoking post up that raises the idea of an ecosystem approach to data-dissemination. In other words, that we should be building a communities of standards-compliant data-providers who can all share each other’s data. Both the new Heritage Gateway, and Swish (representing Scotland and Wales) are planning to allow dissemination of data via web-services at some point, depending on the setup of the individual councils that are providing the data.

Leif says he’ll buy a pint for the first council who allow access to their data in this way- but I think he’s trying to bribe the wrong people really… what about the makers of the software that the council are using? Large numbers of councils are using HBSMR from Exegesis and GGP- when are they planning to provide web-services as part of their software packages?