Comments on: Time for Railcorp to come to the party http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/ Fri, 28 May 2010 13:38:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Steve http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-92 Steve Fri, 28 May 2010 13:38:34 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-92 I'm not sure, Tom. RailCorp probably has their lawyers monitoring blogs in case anyone gives out a train time and they need to get it shut down. I’m not sure, Tom. RailCorp probably has their lawyers monitoring blogs in case anyone gives out a train time and they need to get it shut down.

]]> By: Alex Manchester http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-65 Alex Manchester Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:24:40 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-65 Completely agree and it does seem like very traditional thinking by some people at Railcorp. They should embrace someone willing to work with [for] them, and provide a service for their customers, for free. You can only assume the person who unleashed the lawyers really didn't think it through, or consider the benefits, or was aware of something like OzWeather and its BOM integration. Completely agree and it does seem like very traditional thinking by some people at Railcorp. They should embrace someone willing to work with [for] them, and provide a service for their customers, for free.

You can only assume the person who unleashed the lawyers really didn’t think it through, or consider the benefits, or was aware of something like OzWeather and its BOM integration.

]]> By: Dmitri http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-64 Dmitri Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:19:03 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-64 Hilarious and great post. Totally agree. Open data and free access would be beneficial to all parties, but RailCorp's reaction comes from an old mentality. It was common for companies to protect ideas and secret receipts from competitors. "What if they find out about our new idea? They will steal it!" - that kind of thinking. Information protection is important today too but in much more cases people already have and are working on same ideas. It is pointless to protect what is known. It still sounds odd and is counterintuitive for many that sharing ideas and efforts does actually bring in more benefits than keeping ideas to themselves. Open source movement is one example. Another good example is "Goldcorp Challenge" - when a mining company opened all it's geological data to the world. Mining industry is a very secretive industry and geological data is carefully guarded resource. What RailCorp guards here? Timetables?! Yeah... right... Hilarious and great post. Totally agree.

Open data and free access would be beneficial to all parties, but RailCorp’s reaction comes from an old mentality. It was common for companies to protect ideas and secret receipts from competitors. “What if they find out about our new idea? They will steal it!” – that kind of thinking.
Information protection is important today too but in much more cases people already have and are working on same ideas. It is pointless to protect what is known.

It still sounds odd and is counterintuitive for many that sharing ideas and efforts does actually bring in more benefits than keeping ideas to themselves. Open source movement is one example. Another good example is “Goldcorp Challenge” – when a mining company opened all it’s geological data to the world.
Mining industry is a very secretive industry and geological data is carefully guarded resource.

What RailCorp guards here? Timetables?! Yeah… right…

]]> By: Steven Lewis http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-63 Steven Lewis Fri, 06 Mar 2009 06:05:34 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-63 I'm not sure, Tom. RailCorp probably has their lawyers monitoring blogs in case anyone gives out a train time and they need to get it shut down. I’m not sure, Tom. RailCorp probably has their lawyers monitoring blogs in case anyone gives out a train time and they need to get it shut down.

]]> By: Tom Voirol http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-62 Tom Voirol Fri, 06 Mar 2009 06:01:14 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-62 Hilarious and absolutely spot on. Now given that the people in charge at RailCorp don't read blogs (They probably have someone who operates their computer for them), what are the chances of them understanding? Hilarious and absolutely spot on. Now given that the people in charge at RailCorp don’t read blogs (They probably have someone who operates their computer for them), what are the chances of them understanding?

]]> By: Graham Dawson http://siliconfederation.com/2009/03/time-for-railcorp-to-come-to-the-party/comment-page-1/#comment-61 Graham Dawson Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:40:10 +0000 http://siliconfederation.com/?p=457#comment-61 If RailCorp wants to ensure timely and accurate data in third-party offerings, they just need to ensure that they *publish* timely and accurate data themselves. And these days, of course, publish would mean in a form accessible via the web, and consequently also instantly available to third parties. The BoM is very impressive in this regard. IMO their publicly accessible weather data offerings are the best in the world. They ensure timeliness and accuracy in third party offerings simply by imposing the condition that republished data includes issue times and expiry times where appropriate. If RailCorp wants to ensure timely and accurate data in third-party offerings, they just need to ensure that they *publish* timely and accurate data themselves. And these days, of course, publish would mean in a form accessible via the web, and consequently also instantly available to third parties.

The BoM is very impressive in this regard. IMO their publicly accessible weather data offerings are the best in the world. They ensure timeliness and accuracy in third party offerings simply by imposing the condition that republished data includes issue times and expiry times where appropriate.

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