This is great news! You could ask ”What’s taken so long?” but that would be sour grapes. Guess we no longer need http://freethepostcode.org/ now though.
"Harry Metcalfe, who helped sites get at postcode data, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the decision to open up the OS data sets.
"The 'how' is terribly important, quite easily the difference between a fantastic data release and a waste of time," he said.
He said it would "possibly" be enough to help websites that want to use postcode data.
"Maybe probably." he said. "It will be if it's done right."
And it looks like the Post Office has already clarified that the PAF data (the stuff that lets you go quickly from a postcode to a customer's address) will remain closed:
At FOWA a few months ago, the Ordanance Survey (a taxpayer funded organization that handles postcode and general surveying in the UK) had a stand asking people to pay the typical exhorbitant amount of money (a few hundred pounds a year) to access the data their taxes already paid for.
Pretty much everyone at the conference doing anything in the geo space was using the 100MB file that gets uploaded to wikileaks every few weeks instead.
Having said that, public sector organisations licence data like everyone else, and that money does come from the taxpayer. However, if the Ordnance Survey were a private company then this situation would be the same.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 33.8 ms ] thread"Harry Metcalfe, who helped sites get at postcode data, said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the decision to open up the OS data sets. "The 'how' is terribly important, quite easily the difference between a fantastic data release and a waste of time," he said. He said it would "possibly" be enough to help websites that want to use postcode data. "Maybe probably." he said. "It will be if it's done right."
http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/2009/12/postcodes-to-be-f...
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=985599
Pretty much everyone at the conference doing anything in the geo space was using the 100MB file that gets uploaded to wikileaks every few weeks instead.
"It is a separate government department that is now financed through data licensing rather than direct funding from the tax payer"
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/media/features/tra...
Having said that, public sector organisations licence data like everyone else, and that money does come from the taxpayer. However, if the Ordnance Survey were a private company then this situation would be the same.