Open Your Data and Make Business

In Montreal Transportation Open Data, I was writing:

Give the opportunity for people to develop commercial (or not) applications helping/driving users to order tickets or use more the service.

The Bixi system has been inaugurated in London this summer. According to the Guardian, Transport For London, decided to release the data to encourage developers to create innovative applications.

Transport for London (TfL) is suddenly getting the free data/app development religion. Having just relaxed its rules to allow commercial use of an initial set of its train and tube data, it is now calling on mobile developers to “come up with innovative and creative ways to keep users informed about the Mayor’s flagship cycling scheme.”

That is good! We just something similar with Bixi data in Montréal: Bixar．It is good for everyone for Bixi, for users, for Pheromone.

But most important of all, TfL went a bit further than just releasing the data. They explicitly authorized commercial use of their own data.

Q: Is it possible to use the feeds on a commercial basis?

A: Yes, you are welcome to charge the public for applications you produce using TfL syndicated data.

I would recommend to go a bit further, by attaching a CreativeCommons License to these data: CC-BY. That would create a legal framework at no cost for both TfL and developers.

Update: Ian Davis recommends to use Open Data Commons Licenses.