Apparently the Ordnance Survey in the UK are planning on making all of their mapping data available free online next year. It will be interesting to see how its made available - formats, downloadability etc

It would certainly be nice if the OSI followed suit although their are some online viewers available, downloadable maps are still prohibitively expensive.

Considering the fact that we pay for the maps anyway through the tax system, state mapping really should be freely available to private citizens (if not for commercial use). This is especially true when it comes to early editions, many of which are now out of copyright.