Ordnance Survey allows mashups with maps like google!

Normally we keep stuffabout the Free Our Data campaign to its own blog, but some things areworth mentioning here too. Such as Ordnance Survey, the UK's mappingagency, which today announced that it is launching its OpenSpace project for wider use.
This ties in with our story in today's Technology section - though the key thing is, of course, that mashups in this way will only be available to nonprofit organisations.
From the press release:

OS OpenSpace enables web-savvy users to build mash-ups witha range of Ordnance Survey data in line with government aims to makepublic sector information more accessible.

Under an application programming interface (API) developerswill register for a feed of data to experiment with non-commercially.It includes a range of mapping scales covering the whole of GreatBritain down to street level.

But before you hang out all the bunting, it's only for some just now:

This week’s stage involves a hands-on preview to adedicated group of developers who will have exclusive access to testfunctionality and build applications ahead of a public launch early inthe new year.

Still, Steve Coast of OpenStreetMap is enthusiastic, at least in therelease: "This represents one of the most significant releases of amapping data API. It will be interesting to see what web developers dowith it," he's quoted as saying.
Ed Parsons, who as chief technology officer at OS (before leaving last year for Google) was key in making this happen, remarks on his own blog:

I’d love to see comments from anyone who is part of the alpha, but Iguess they are under pretty strict NDA at the moment. One observationis the limit on the number of maps tiles which may be rendered for anAPI key, this is not something I have seen elsewhere, but I canunderstand it as a defence against accusations from commercial users ofthe data of unfairness.

Still is great to see something I put so much effort into during my time at the OS finally reaching the public.

I saw it demonstrated by Ed and his team when I visited OS in 2006;I thought it looked impressive then. Legal wranglings over licences arethought to have held it back.
The point of the Free Our Data campaign (in case it's new to you) isthat we argue that data like the OS maps should be available for free commercialreuse (at present it's charged-for, and can be very expensive), and thecost of providing their services funded directly out of taxes. Then,commercial companies could thrive and compete without the drag of thedata cost. (As an example, consider the multiplier effect of GPS -which I wrote about here.)
So, do you think OS maps will help mashup methods? Will you use them?