[ http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/tech/openpostcode/ ]
On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 10:43:34AM +0000, Kate L Pugh wrote:
What are you planning to do with the data?
On Mon 27 Oct 2003, David Cantrell david@cantrell.org.uk wrote:
Right now? Not a lot. With enough data, it would enable people to do things like list all the FOOs within N distance of place M, given the addresses of M and the FOOs.
OK, but the problem with the data attribution (see below) would need to be solved before I'd consider relying on this for any application I was involved with writing.
Kake:
How are you going to prove that you didn't nick it from streetmap?
Dave:
Streetmap are as welcome to look at the source code as you are.
But that doesn't prove anything about where the data came from. If Streetmap - or anyone else who licenses postcode data - can make a convincing case that some of the data in your collection was harvested from their site, then you run the risk of not being allowed to distribute *any* of your carefully-collected data. And then any applications which depend on your data will break.
The real reason I did this is because people talked about it [...] but no-one DID anything.
People who have thought about this kind of thing fairly carefully include blech, jerakeen and Chris Heathcote. I'd recommend you have a chat to at least one of those people if you plan to put much effort into this project.
The direction I am going in is the one you and others suggested on london-pm - the simple consideration that things in SW6 are going to be fairly close to things in SW6 6LA. If CGI::Wiki's tests hadn't been designed by someone with bananas for brains (ie me) then this would be done by now.
Kake PS - I'm sure you know this, but postcodes do change.