the Open City - the next driver for innovation?

Mayor Gregor Robertson and Coun. Andrea Reimer want the City of Vancouver to support open-source software and open standards.

They also want the city to make as much data as possible freely available to the public. Reimer will introduce a motion [PDF] next Tuesday (May 19) that would see the city endorse the principles of open source, open standards, and open data, as well as start work on publishing data on the Web using open standards.

In a press release issued today (May 14), Robertson said that an “open city” philosophy would help create new opportunities in the information-technology sector.

City of Vancouver set to back open source, open standards, open data - straight.com - May 14, 2009

via Twitter - Rob Giggey (Rob works at the City of Ottawa) - May 15, 2009

(I tried to find the Gregor Robertson press release referenced above, but I haven't been successful - can anyone point me to it?)

Toronto Mayor Miller has also announced toronto.ca/open (which still shows "under construction").

In Ottawa, supported by some City of Ottawa staff but not (yet?) endorsed as any kind of official policy, we're starting the open data discussion as part of ChangeCamp Ottawa.

What can you do as citizens and what can we do as libraries to enable the sharing of our civic data?  Is sharing civic data a next logical step for public libraries as enablers of the public space?

Previously:
May 5, 2009  Web APIs explained on CBC Spark - and Open Data Under Construction