Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 2:36 PM, Tom Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for the location of every UK post box. Royal Mail responded with a 1600 page PDF containing their info. I parsed the PDF and resorted it, the result is in tab separated format: http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/postboxes.tsv 116089 postboxes. There are three invalid records in the PDF: CA7, CA54, SMARTHILL L345 541, ST JAMES ROAD NR6, HA0, 61 SUDBURY AVENUE -- Edward. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On 06/07/2008 23:58, Dermot McNally wrote: 2008/7/5 Mike Collinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Interesting. I note that in both the PDF document and the cover letter that the Royal Mail have made no attempt to assert any copyright or ownership but doubt whether that is enough. They do, though, right at the beginning: (c) Royal Mail Group Limited, 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission, in writing, of Royal Mail Group Limited. So the issue now is whether the provision of this list in response to a FOI request represents the granting of more extensive rights to use the data. Of course it doesn't. Why would it? If it did there wouldn't be an issue with Ordnance Survey map data, would there? But just in case you are in any doubt: see para 2 in http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/freedom-of-information-publication-schemes.htm This data is copyright and anything done with it in relation to OSM is probably tainted. David ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
Tom Taylor wrote: Sent: 05 July 2008 3:49 PM To: talk@openstreetmap.org Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data However postcodes are not very accurate, they get you to within a quarter/half/full street. Again, agreed, but Royal Mail themselves don't hold any more accurate information. If you want a comparison area which has very good postbox survey coverage in OSM already then pull them from the bbox below. The vast majority should be there for that area and include the box reference number and the front section of the postcode, both of which you find on the postbox plate. 52.50,-1.95,52.62,-1.72 Cheers Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
Tom Taylor wrote: I did some parsing of the PDF, and it seems that of the 114,000 post boxes in the UK, 50599 seem to have valid postcode data. I'm currently geocoding these postcodes using Yahoo's service, and wondered if the resulting longitudes and latitudes would be of interest to OSM and could be integrated. I'm not entirely clear on the licensing of it. Can anyone clarify? Why not do this all in reverse? FreeThePostcode is great, but it seems to me that there would also be value in a (more complete) postcode set which combined their stuff with data derived from OSM. Basically, you take an address with street and postcode, use the NameFinder to find the street, click on it, and the tool marks that street as having the postcode. (I've been meaning to write this tool for months but not had time.) However, for this to work, you need a big file of addresses covering the UK. Er, hang on a minute, you just obtained one :-) Gerv ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
2008/7/5 Mike Collinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Interesting. I note that in both the PDF document and the cover letter that the Royal Mail have made no attempt to assert any copyright or ownership but doubt whether that is enough. They do, though, right at the beginning: (c) Royal Mail Group Limited, 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission, in writing, of Royal Mail Group Limited. So the issue now is whether the provision of this list in response to a FOI request represents the granting of more extensive rights to use the data. Dermot -- -- Iren sind menschlich ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] UK post box data
Hello all, I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for the location of every UK post box. Royal Mail responded with a 1600 page PDF containing their info. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/location_of_every_post_box_that I did some parsing of the PDF, and it seems that of the 114,000 post boxes in the UK, 50599 seem to have valid postcode data. I'm currently geocoding these postcodes using Yahoo's service, and wondered if the resulting longitudes and latitudes would be of interest to OSM and could be integrated. I'm not entirely clear on the licensing of it. Can anyone clarify? Cheers, Tom ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
At 03:36 PM 5/07/2008, Tom Taylor wrote: Hello all, I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for the location of every UK post box. Royal Mail responded with a 1600 page PDF containing their info. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/location_of_every_post_box_that I did some parsing of the PDF, and it seems that of the 114,000 post boxes in the UK, 50599 seem to have valid postcode data. I'm currently geocoding these postcodes using Yahoo's service, and wondered if the resulting longitudes and latitudes would be of interest to OSM and could be integrated. I'm not entirely clear on the licensing of it. Can anyone clarify? Cheers, Tom Interesting. I note that in both the PDF document and the cover letter that the Royal Mail have made no attempt to assert any copyright or ownership but doubt whether that is enough. Can you point to an on-line copy of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 itself, I wonder if that has any passages relating to the usage of information provided? Mike ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On 05/07/2008 14:36, Tom Taylor wrote: Hello all, I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for the location of every UK post box. Royal Mail responded with a 1600 page PDF containing their info. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/location_of_every_post_box_that I did some parsing of the PDF, and it seems that of the 114,000 post boxes in the UK, 50599 seem to have valid postcode data. I'm currently geocoding these postcodes using Yahoo's service, and wondered if the resulting longitudes and latitudes would be of interest to OSM and could be integrated. I'm not entirely clear on the licensing of it. Can anyone clarify? I rather think this is infringing two copyrights: the database copyright in the original data and perhaps more crucially the database copyright in the geocoder for the postcodes which is presumably licensed by Yahoo from the Royal Mail - in effect you are reproducing a big chunk of that database by doing this. I don't think the fact that they are obliged to give you the data under FoI gives you any additional rights over the data in respect of the copyright that exists on the database you were given. David ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On 5 Jul 2008, at 14:36, Tom Taylor wrote: Hello all, I recently made a Freedom of Information Act request for the location of every UK post box. Royal Mail responded with a 1600 page PDF containing their info. http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/location_of_every_post_box_that I did some parsing of the PDF, and it seems that of the 114,000 post boxes in the UK, 50599 seem to have valid postcode data. I'm currently geocoding these postcodes using Yahoo's service, and wondered if the resulting longitudes and latitudes would be of interest to OSM and could be integrated. I'm not entirely clear on the licensing of it. Can anyone clarify? The problem is that you are geocoding using Yahoo's geocoding services. Which simply isn't compatible with the OSM licence. If you were to use OSM or free the postcode data for doing the geocoding, then you would be able to do it. However postcodes are not very accurate, they get you to within a quarter/half/full street. All post boxes in OSM are done more accurate than that. It would be far better to say, there should be a post box somewhere in this area, and there isn't one yet. Presenting this in a status page online would be more useful. Someone done this for the railway stations. Shaun Cheers, Tom ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On 5 Jul 2008, at 15:49, Tom Taylor wrote: On 5 Jul 2008, at 15:29, Shaun McDonald wrote: The problem is that you are geocoding using Yahoo's geocoding services. Which simply isn't compatible with the OSM licence. If you were to use OSM or free the postcode data for doing the geocoding, then you would be able to do it. Agreed, but Free The Postcode simply doesn't contain the density of data required. Until the Postcode Address File is released, I don't see a better way of doing it. However postcodes are not very accurate, they get you to within a quarter/half/full street. Again, agreed, but Royal Mail themselves don't hold any more accurate information. Then it appears that we are going to need to survey them all. At least we have some idea as to when they will be complete. All post boxes in OSM are done more accurate than that. It would be far better to say, there should be a post box somewhere in this area, and there isn't one yet. Presenting this in a status page online would be more useful. Someone done this for the railway stations. Have you got a URL for this? http://edwardbetts.com/osm/stations.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
On 5 Jul 2008, at 16:51, Shaun McDonald wrote: http://edwardbetts.com/osm/stations.html That's nice. I'll see if I can knock something similar together using postcode boundaries. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data
- Original Message - From: Mike Collinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Tom Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED]; talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 3:11 PM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] UK post box data Can you point to an on-line copy of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 itself, I wonder if that has any passages relating to the usage of information provided? Freedom of Information Act 2000 c.36 Web version (HTML) - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_2036_en_1 Proint version (PDF) - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/pdf/ukpga_2036_en.pdf Explanatory Note (HTML) - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/en/ukpgaen_2036_en_1 Explanatory Note (PDF) - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/en/ukpgaen_2036_en.pdf David James ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
