Phil,
It's been at least partly freed:
http://www.freepostcodes.org.uk/
I'm not talking about importing them, because I understand some people are
leery of the potential copyright issues, and because it's not an "on the
ground" source. That's fine; I'm side-stepping that question (hopefully!) and
instead asking: Can the osm.org search box be updated to return results from
that complete list?
I do make heavy use of postcodes for geolocation, and they work pretty well for
my needs. They're short, and they're usually accurate enough for me to drive to
an address. They're also very very common, and many people will expect the OSM
site to behave the same as e.g. Google Maps if you input a postcode. I know
there are arguments against using postcodes, but no customers of mine would bat
an eyelid if I asked them for their postcode; they'd look at me funny if I
asked them for a gridref.
cheers
>________________________________
> From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
>To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
>Sent: Monday, 12 March 2012, 11:50
>Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Searching UK addresses on the osm.org website
>
>
>I believe that the royal mail postcode database is copyright and so importing
>such data would probably be a no no.
>Until recently I was a Ramblers Membership srcretary, and the problems caused
>by postcode allocation of new members, in particular around the county
>boundary led me to believe that postcodes are a very goog way of delivering
>the mail and are totally useless for any other purpose.
>If we need a shortcode for entering an address how about a good old fashioned
>grid-reference?
>Phil
>
>On 12/03/2012 10:50 Dan Avis wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>
>Without wishing to descend into a license debate... (I've seen previous posts
>suggesting that *importing* the postcode database is at least contentious)
>
>
>Is it possible to get the osm.org search box to return results of the full
>postcode database? The data's been geocoded already, and it wouldn't have to
>be imported in order for that to work.
>I typically use only the postcode to find addresses, so it'd be handy.
>
>
>cheers
>
>
>
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