Oracle Spatial Locks Your Data Away
May 25, 2010 16 Comments
That is the only conclusion I can come to out of this wacky ruling. A huge warning to everyone, if you put your data in Oracle Spatial, you may never get it back out because it ceases to be data and turns into software. There is only one song that comes to mind here:
On a side note, clearly you don’t want me to live in your town our county. I grew up in Orange County and now live in Tempe. Possibly it is I who causes data to be locked away.
About James Fee
Other dumb laws in California
It is a misdemeanor to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehicle, unless the target is a whale.
Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.
Persons may not ride their bicycles through the “Fountain of Life”.
Detonating a nuclear device within the city limits results in a $500 fine. [levied by whom?]
It is illegal to sell gasoline to a drunken person. [seems reasonable]
It is illegal to walk a camel down Palm Canyon Drive between the hours of four and six PM. [James, please remember this the next time you're at the Developer Summit.]
One may not carry a lunch down the street between 11 and 1 o’clock. [although apparently a camel is free to do so]
It is illegal to shoot jackrabbits from the back of a streetcar. [remember this when you're at the ESRI UC this summer, folks]
The Californicators write a lot of dumb laws. Calling data software pales in comparison.
This does set a wonderful precedent for Google and their approach to privacy (that’s ours now, go away) and data rights (what did I just tell you? Now go away, that’s mine)
The bicycle laws refer to athletes on BMX bikes utilizing the urban terrain to release stress and stay in shape (a.k.a “Street Riding”). And the pools are empty when they ride their bikes in them.
James, I think it is quite unfair to say that this is an issue with Oracle Spatial; based on the actual court documents this is a GIS software issue. In fact Oracle is not mentioned in the ruling even once. I would go further to say that data stored in ANY GIS format and any data source might be subject to the same ruling – especially The Cloud. Think about it this way: organization A stores their data on a WeoGeo cloud instance then gets sued by another party, organization B, for pieces of the data that are not technically controlled or stored by organization A. What do you think the court would rule in that case? Would WeoGeo own the software and data in that case? Whether or not WeoGeo owned the data, would organization B have access to it or would WeoGeo have to be sued as well? Do you really think the contract organization A signed with WeoGeo would make a difference? Methinks not. Being a native Californian I completely understand how screwed up our laws can be – I mean we have something like the 3rd largest Constitution in the world. That’s not a good think. However, I also don;t see why you would feel the need to paint a broad brush statement, in a headline no less, about how “Oracle Spatial Locks Your Data Away”. This is not true or fair relative to any other data or software in any other type or source.
Justin: I’m not sure if you are a regular here or not, but this type of post is typical of James. It helps to put a <sarcasm> tag around everything.
The really sad part about that is the Orange County FPA having to pay $75k per year for access to the data. Having worked in municipal GIS I can’t imagine the incredible turf battles going on there. I would never have thought to charge another department for our data and certainly not that kind of massive cash.
around these parts we call that robbing peter to pay paul.
What does this have to do with Oracle Spatial? I’m assuming that the Orange County data was stored in Oracle Spatial, but this ruling is pretty weak. It finds in favor of the county on legal technicalities (i.e. – “the Sierra Club lawyer’s argument was based on a case that doesn’t apply to this, so the county wins!”) and does not really rule on a definition of public records vs. software except to say that in this particular case, the land base in question is software.
disclaimer: IANAL
Data isn’t software Mike S, I’m sure you know that.
Oracle Spatial is software. I can’t imagine that this text I’m writing here becomes software because it gets stored in James’ database.
Well, it doesn’t mention Oracle by name, but it’s what’s being discussed.
From the ORDER:
=it must be decided whether the OC Land base in GIS format is mere data or computer mapping system software.
=GC 6254.9 plainly states that computer software is not a public record, that an agency may license the software and that computer software includes computer mapping systems. To that end, the computer mapping system that provides the OC Land base in GIS format is not a public record but rather an exception to the PRA rule of disclosure.
=The OC Land base in GIS format contains public record information but is not merely comprised of public records information.
=The fine distinction between the parties’ positions is that the Sierra Club views its request as one for the public record extracted from the computer mapping system software while the County views the request as one for licensing of the software without paying the licensing fee.
=It appears that this is not a dispute over production of public record but rather the form of the production and at what cost. The cost of production in GIS format includes a software licensing fee that moving party may pay like all other GIS formatted information requesters pay. That moving party has its own gratis software for using the GIS formatted data does not change what the cost of the County is to provide such information in requested format
::::::::
So, simply, if you put the data in an Oracle format, you can charge for cost recovery on all the Oracle seats in the house on every copy of the parcel data.
The whole order is crazy, and so is Orange County’s position.
Actually, as someone who has worked for the County of Orange, doing GIS, in the past. I would like to point out that the Orange County Fire Authority is not part of the County of Orange (http://www.ocfa.org/ocfamain.asp?pgn1=2). That is why the OCFA has to purchase the data from the County of Orange.
I actually find the title accurate. If this data was shapefliles (which I’m sure it is), then the ruling would say it would have to be provided. But because the O.C. subscribes to Larry’s world, Oracle Spatial data is software.
I’m sure there is a memo inside the O.C. telling their staff to never utter the word DATAbase because it doesn’t accurately describe their software product.
Bizzaro world indeed.
How many ways can you same LAME. Lets think of some options here people:
1) Install GeoServer or OpenGeo’s OpenGeo Suite on a machine in your IT infrastructure. Connect to the Oracle Spatial tables and serve up some restfull goodness. Release the hounds as GML, Shapefile, KML, GeoRSS, GeoJSON, etc.
2) Install ArcGIS Server and publish out some REST end points to the data. Make them secure and provide to the Sierra Club. Data can be accessed in a similar fashion as 1.
3) Export the data and provide to a GIS professional
Come on people!
Check.
That’s what you think
Three of diamonds!
Crown my king…thank you.
It’s nothing.
You’re cheating.
How can I cheat? There are no rules.
Oh, yeah.
Knight to knight seven. Ha! Full house.
Oh, really?
Uh-huh.
Gin.
Gin it is…Thank you. –
Let’s set up the board again.
This time, I get to play cards and checkers.
Oh, no, no, no. That’s not fair.
Because whoever has the cards and checkers always wins.
[Knocking] – Come in.
“Afternoon, sirs.”
Aah! Radar, you’re the last person I wanted to see!
Radar, old buddy, lookin’ at you is like money in the bank.
“All the other tents, they just say hello.”
Would you like to join us?
“What are you playin’?”
Double Cranko.
Yeah.
Bishops are worth three jacks.
Right.
Checkers are wild.
Uh-huh.
And you have to be 21 or over to open.
“On a side note, clearly you don’t want me to live in your town our county. I grew up in Orange County and now live in Tempe. Possibly it is I who causes data to be locked away.”
Interesting. I’ve lived in San Diego County (http://www.sangis.org/Download_GIS_Data.htm); Johnson County, IA (http://www.johnson-county.com/dept_gis.aspx?id=991); and St Louis County (http://www.stlouisco.com/plan/gis/spatial_data.html). You can get all three counties for less than the price of 200 Orange County parcels.
We should agree to move to the same county and see what happens.
your most retarded posting ever. did you get a kick back from jack or a bj from paul for this?
Big man there not putting your name up.