Presentation at the first HackDemocracy meetup in Brussels, December 2010. Presented by @pietercolpaert

1. iRail and open data
@pietercolpaert
Hack democracy

2. 5 minutes
● Scraping
● The law
● Project problems

3. Why?

4. Really no other option?
DON'T wait
● For big forms to be filled in
● For officials to respond
DON'T talk too much about your ideas
DO

5. A Lot Of Laws

6. Different explanations for scraping
● Legal: «show data, differently» (~Browser)
● +/-: «already public data»
● Illegal: «steal data»

7. Public transport: iRail
● Second database law
● Result of activity = no copyright
● Others don't agree?
● iRail vzw/asbl/npo supports you!

8. But!
Who cares
about laws?

9. Web2.0: If people like it
It's okay!
Just be awesome

10. Design problems

11. So much choice!
● Java servlets
● PHP
● Perl
● Python
● ...

13. ?
● Limit dirtiness?
● How modular?
● Reusability?

14. Help each other!
● API
● one time job
● Open source
– Everyone helps fixing
● Patch «the» system!

15. Conclusion
● SCRAPE
● When no other possibility
● WORK
● Together!
● QUICK & DIRTY
● But clean it up

16. Q&A
@pietercolpaert
Project.iRail.be
Github.com/iRail