5 ms·

GeoDjango and the UK postcode database

30 points by gthank 17y ago

robin_reala 17y ago
Background for non-UK residents: the postcode database is controlled by Royal Mail and isn’t public domain. If you want to use the data you must licence it at fairly expensive rates first. There’s a project to create a crowdsourced clone of this data ( http://freethepostcode.org/ http://freethepostcode.org/ ) and it’s beginning to get there, but it’s by no means complete.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  postcode database is controlled by Royal Mail and isn’t public domain That makes no sense at all to me. How the heck can you function with people's addresses half secret? Strange.
  - sharpn 17y ago
    The data isn't secret, but commercial access to the database is restricted. If you want to find a few postcodes (I think <=5 per day) it's free. More, or if you want a manipulatable copy of the dataset you need to pay.
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      Again, crazy. The only thing it does is keep postcode methods of geo-location unavailable to the UK public. Canada, Australia, the US and most of Europe are already moving forward here because they don't have this restriction... the UK loses out.
      - lamby 17y ago
        Cory Doctorow writes: This isn't capitalism, nor is it socialism. It's a kind of corporatism in which the risk―the money spent speculatively mapping Britain, arguing in Parliament, drawing up postal code boundaries―is entirely assumed by the public, but the reward―access and profit-taking―are entirely given to the private sector.
        robin_reala 17y ago
        Same goes for the Ordnance Survey. Luckily, they’re in the process of being taken apart online by OpenStreetMap. Having said that, their paper maps are wonderful.
        crc32 17y ago
        it is not true that the "reward [is] entirely given to the private sector." the royal mail is owned by the government, so the profits extracted from selling the postcode database could be viewed as subsidising other services. (post in rural areas, for example)
kingkilr 17y ago
I'm fairly convinced the most badass part of that is that he can just do ".distinace.m" and get it in meters. Of course there are other units if you prefer: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/contrib/gis/measure.py#L87 http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/co... :)
- jbronn 17y ago
  The distance/area objects in GeoDjango are an under-appreciated feature. The docs have a more readable version of the supported units: http://geodjango.org/docs/measure.html#supported-units http://geodjango.org/docs/measure.html#supported-units
- lsb 17y ago
  Rails' ActiveSupport has a similarly nifty feature, where 15.days.ago is a valid Time object, and it all just works out of the box.

30 points by gthank 17y ago

Background for non-UK residents: the postcode database is controlled by Royal Mail and isn’t public domain. If you want to use the data you must licence it at fairly expensive rates first. There’s a project to create a crowdsourced clone of this data ( http://freethepostcode.org/ http://freethepostcode.org/ ) and it’s beginning to get there, but it’s by no means complete.

run4yourlives 17y ago
postcode database is controlled by Royal Mail and isn’t public domain That makes no sense at all to me. How the heck can you function with people's addresses half secret? Strange.
- sharpn 17y ago
  The data isn't secret, but commercial access to the database is restricted. If you want to find a few postcodes (I think <=5 per day) it's free. More, or if you want a manipulatable copy of the dataset you need to pay.
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Again, crazy. The only thing it does is keep postcode methods of geo-location unavailable to the UK public. Canada, Australia, the US and most of Europe are already moving forward here because they don't have this restriction... the UK loses out.
    - lamby 17y ago
      Cory Doctorow writes: This isn't capitalism, nor is it socialism. It's a kind of corporatism in which the risk―the money spent speculatively mapping Britain, arguing in Parliament, drawing up postal code boundaries―is entirely assumed by the public, but the reward―access and profit-taking―are entirely given to the private sector.
      - robin_reala 17y ago
        Same goes for the Ordnance Survey. Luckily, they’re in the process of being taken apart online by OpenStreetMap. Having said that, their paper maps are wonderful.
      - crc32 17y ago
        it is not true that the "reward [is] entirely given to the private sector." the royal mail is owned by the government, so the profits extracted from selling the postcode database could be viewed as subsidising other services. (post in rural areas, for example)

kingkilr 17y ago

I'm fairly convinced the most badass part of that is that he can just do ".distinace.m" and get it in meters. Of course there are other units if you prefer: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/contrib/gis/measure.py#L87 http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/co... :)

jbronn 17y ago
The distance/area objects in GeoDjango are an under-appreciated feature. The docs have a more readable version of the supported units: http://geodjango.org/docs/measure.html#supported-units http://geodjango.org/docs/measure.html#supported-units
lsb 17y ago
Rails' ActiveSupport has a similarly nifty feature, where 15.days.ago is a valid Time object, and it all just works out of the box.