Coming Soon

The Open Archaeology blog writes:

It's encouraging to see that such a large project benefits from free software and, at the same time, gives back to the community.

It would be great if also Pleiades data were available under a free license.

I think Pleiades is producing some nice tools, particularly for Python users. The OWSLib, Quadtree, and Rtree modules are, or have, Pleiades contributions. Our geocoding and slippy map Plone products are also getting playing time. However, to most historians and archaeologists the data is more important than the tools. New Pleiades data will be available under a CC or Science Commons type license, but the negotiation of terms for existing Barrington Atlas data (under similar license) is not quite finished. Fortunately, we're not petitioning solo: people like Eric Kansa, Ross Scaife, and Peter Suber (to name just a few) are making open access to scholarly data a very respectable enterprise.