5 ms·

How would crowdsourcing solve this problem? > Oh, and it wouldn’t even be legally allowed to include, er, postcodes, as they are specifically owned by Royal Ma

How would crowdsourcing solve this problem? > Oh, and it wouldn’t even be legally allowed to include, er, postcodes, as they are specifically owned by Royal Mail

moring 2y ago
How does OpenStreetMap solve it? OSM, more specifically OSM Nominatim, shows postcodes. Example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?lat=53.151778&lon=-1.168003#map=19/53.151779/-1.168003 https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?lat=53.151778&lon=-1.16...
- darrenf 2y ago
  I didn't know the answer so I looked it up. Nominatim gets postcodes from Ordnance Survey: https://nominatim.org/release-docs/3.4/data-sources/GB-Postcodes/ https://nominatim.org/release-docs/3.4/data-sources/GB-Postc... Specifically Code-Point Open: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/code-point-open https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/code-point-open which is updated quarterly, and in turn gets the postcodes from Royal Mail.
  - moring 2y ago
    It seems to me that you can download the postcode list freely: https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen Something is missing here. If OS already has that data from RM and can make it available freely, why would they need to build another database?
    - sahmeepee 2y ago
      Because the OS data doesn't provide addresses, just locations of the postcodes in coordinate terms, so you can't provide the typical website address lookup.
RossM 2y ago
I can't find any good information post-privatisation, but at least before 2013 the postcodes themselves were copyrighted by Royal Mail (likely Crown Copyright as with government data). There were attempts to enforce this in 2009[0]. I suspect the copyright is now owned by Royal Mail Group Ltd. That aside, a practical issue is that Royal Mail still retains the rights to _allocate_ new postcodes for any new properties. Yet another failure of this particular privatisation. [0]: https://www.techdirt.com/2009/10/06/uk-royal-mail-uses-copyright-claim-to-shut-down-postal-code-info-online/ https://www.techdirt.com/2009/10/06/uk-royal-mail-uses-copyr...

How would crowdsourcing solve this problem? > Oh, and it wouldn’t even be legally allowed to include, er, postcodes, as they are specifically owned by Royal Mail

moring 2y ago

How does OpenStreetMap solve it? OSM, more specifically OSM Nominatim, shows postcodes. Example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?lat=53.151778&lon=-1.168003#map=19/53.151779/-1.168003 https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?lat=53.151778&lon=-1.16...

darrenf 2y ago
I didn't know the answer so I looked it up. Nominatim gets postcodes from Ordnance Survey: https://nominatim.org/release-docs/3.4/data-sources/GB-Postcodes/ https://nominatim.org/release-docs/3.4/data-sources/GB-Postc... Specifically Code-Point Open: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/code-point-open https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/code-point-open which is updated quarterly, and in turn gets the postcodes from Royal Mail.
- moring 2y ago
  It seems to me that you can download the postcode list freely: https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/CodePointOpen Something is missing here. If OS already has that data from RM and can make it available freely, why would they need to build another database?
  - sahmeepee 2y ago
    Because the OS data doesn't provide addresses, just locations of the postcodes in coordinate terms, so you can't provide the typical website address lookup.

RossM 2y ago

I can't find any good information post-privatisation, but at least before 2013 the postcodes themselves were copyrighted by Royal Mail (likely Crown Copyright as with government data). There were attempts to enforce this in 2009[0]. I suspect the copyright is now owned by Royal Mail Group Ltd. That aside, a practical issue is that Royal Mail still retains the rights to _allocate_ new postcodes for any new properties. Yet another failure of this particular privatisation. [0]: https://www.techdirt.com/2009/10/06/uk-royal-mail-uses-copyright-claim-to-shut-down-postal-code-info-online/ https://www.techdirt.com/2009/10/06/uk-royal-mail-uses-copyr...