The actual legal text is open to interpretation by which all this becomes legal. When writing this post, and now still, there is a lot of uncertainty about what the consequences might and will be. This is a worst-case scenario.

Pieter

The section “What ACTA is not about” on http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/trade-topics/intellectual-property/anti-counterfeiting/ contradicts with what you’re stating in your blogpost:

“But ACTA also empowers customs officers to check your hard drive and USB sticks on copyrighted material when crossing borders. And of course, it also allows for “counterfeiting” sites to be taken down with minimal effort, closely resembling the late SOPA bill.”

Or does the EC summary/FAQ state something else than the final text?

Thanks for your comment. I don’t agree however. Politicians have been convinced in the past. European directives to open public service information are already implemented in Belgian law.

Therefore, MIVB/STIB (and others as well) are illegally protecting their data from third party use.

Check this link: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/rules/ms/index_en.htm#belgium

Pieter

My thinking is that the people in charge of the decision to open up the data are most likely senior managers who grew up in an era without computers. They don’t seem to understand how they might benefit if this data was open (the most obvious benefit being more people using public transportation).

Data openness should be imposed upon government subsidized companies by the government itself. In order to do this the government (when we finally have one?) needs to be convinced of this non-sexy story.

So it would suggest to stop programming and start marketing. Gather information about the countries where the data is open… set up a website “what if…” and showing how much we are running behind the Netherlands and the UK (if it’s true). Something journalists can write about and politicians can act upon.

It uses the iRail API, which at his turn, uses the HAFAS system (system on b-rail.be). It’s not the same system as railtime, but there shouldn’t be any differences between realtime.be & nmbs/sncb route planner.

Great job! Your app is very usefull.
Does iRail API use the same data as http://www.railtime.be ?

Thanks
Marius

Dat noem ik nu eens innovatiebeleid…

Ik ben het inderdaad eens met je conclusie: status-quo!