Particulate Matter (Feinstaub) is a problem. It can penetrate the deepest part of your lung. That can't be good.
Enter feinstaub.st, a wonderful little website by +Hartwig Brandl and +Johannes Priebsch that visualizes PM10 levels for all major cities in Styria, Austria. They even provide an API! Open data, you think? Well, almost …
The data is provided by the provincial government of Styria, and they have a usage policy concerning the data:
Das Amt der steiermärkischen Landesregierung stellt seine Messdaten derzeit kostenfrei zur Verfügung. Die Verwendung dieser Daten für den persönlichen Gebrauch ist jedem erlaubt. Eine weitere Veröffentlichung ist aber an eine ausdrückliche Zustimmung des Amtes der steiermärkischen Landesregierung, Fachabteilung 17C gebunden.
Let's summarize: We, the people, pay some public servants to collect data about our air quality. Then, we're allowed to use this data, but only if we ask nicely, and only if they – whoever they is – agree.
Don't get me wrong. It's great that we have access to the data. It's great that we're allowed to use it for free for personal purposes. But it's absolutely wrong that anyone can deny us the right to publish data that we, the people, already paid for.
That can't be good, either.
Thoughts?
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