As others have already pointed out, the Ordnance Survey data set Code-Point open is an open-licensed postcode database derived from offical government data, and largely removes the need for separate efforts such as Free The Postcode (although it's possible that some purists still consider a public domain collection effort as worthwhile).
Therefore I am unlikely to continue development with freethepostcode.org or freepostcodes.org.uk but have put up a mirror of the Code-Point open data and links to the offical source.
I note that someone has already put up a geocoder at
which may be of interest to those on the list; it would be interesting if they could post their methods/code for free reuse.
Dominic.
On Thu, April 15, 2010 22:11, Dominic Hargreaves wrote:
I note that someone has already put up a geocoder at
which may be of interest to those on the list; it would be interesting if they could post their methods/code for free reuse.
That was Stuart Harrison, @pezholio.
The code is on GitHub at http://bit.ly/aJZJ5d
On 15 April 2010 22:11, Dominic Hargreaves dom@earth.li wrote:
As others have already pointed out, the Ordnance Survey data set Code-Point open is an open-licensed postcode database derived from offical government data, and largely removes the need for separate efforts such as Free The Postcode (although it's possible that some purists still consider a public domain collection effort as worthwhile).
Wait... not so quickly... All of the North Ireland postcodes are missing from the OS Code-Point Open dataset. Example: http://www.uk-postcodes.com/postcode/BT11AA
/ Grant
On 16 Apr 2010, at 00:29, Grant Slater wrote:
On 15 April 2010 22:11, Dominic Hargreaves dom@earth.li wrote:
As others have already pointed out, the Ordnance Survey data set Code-Point open is an open-licensed postcode database derived from offical government data, and largely removes the need for separate efforts such as Free The Postcode (although it's possible that some purists still consider a public domain collection effort as worthwhile).
Wait... not so quickly... All of the North Ireland postcodes are missing from the OS Code-Point Open dataset. Example: http://www.uk-postcodes.com/postcode/BT11AA
And the other problem is that some postcodes are wrong by being slightly out of place, thus causing routing issues, because they route to the wrong point, or where the postcode for a building points to the sorting office instead of the real location. Also this data is centre points, so getting extra points will make it more accurate, as very frequently when you ask what is the postcode at this lat lon, it will give the wrong postcode back.
Shaun
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 08:08:40AM +0100, Shaun McDonald wrote:
On 16 Apr 2010, at 00:29, Grant Slater wrote:
On 15 April 2010 22:11, Dominic Hargreaves dom@earth.li wrote:
As others have already pointed out, the Ordnance Survey data set Code-Point open is an open-licensed postcode database derived from offical government data, and largely removes the need for separate efforts such as Free The Postcode (although it's possible that some purists still consider a public domain collection effort as worthwhile).
Wait... not so quickly... All of the North Ireland postcodes are missing from the OS Code-Point Open dataset. Example: http://www.uk-postcodes.com/postcode/BT11AA
And the other problem is that some postcodes are wrong by being slightly out of place, thus causing routing issues, because they route to the wrong point, or where the postcode for a building points to the sorting office instead of the real location. Also this data is centre points, so getting extra points will make it more accurate, as very frequently when you ask what is the postcode at this lat lon, it will give the wrong postcode back.
Fair enough. I won't shut freethepostcode.org down, but I probably will do even less with it now :)
Dominic.
freepostcodes@lists.urchin.earth.li
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Andy Mabbett -
Dominic Hargreaves -
Grant Slater -
Shaun McDonald