Set up by the british government as a strategic tool to anticipate a potential invasion by France during the Napoleonic Wars, it looks like the Ordnance Survey may yet have a fight looming. Since its founding in 1791, the Ordnance Survey (OS) has had a virtual monopoly on geographic data in the UK. This is despite the fact that although it is a government agency, it has since 1999 been required to act as a commercial entity, meaning it must be totally self-funding from the sale of its data and derived products. Last year, this allowed the OS, with its Crown Copyright geographical data, to turn a healthy operating profit of ￡16.4m.
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