Rory McCann wrote on 14/11/14 10:21:
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Hi,
Yes the Eircode system has flaws and will be closed. But that's the
system we have to deal with. The UK Postcode system was closed for
years as well. Alas "postcode" in Ireland will mean "Eircode". When
Eircode is launched, we can start adding it to OSM in the
addr:postcode tags. Maybe we'll do some sort of "free the postcode"
for eircode.
Given the closed design of Eircode, there's likely to be a couple of
reasons why this could be problematic:
- Copyright
- Privacy
Leaving it to others to determine if we could do a free-the-postcode
style loading of personal postcodes into OSM, but looking at
http://www.eircode.ie/legal
would suggest it's not a simple decision, and looks specifically
designed to discourage *any* unlicensed (and paid for) use.
Even if copyright is not an issue, and we can do a free-the-postcode,
the eircode design raises questions about whether it's a good idea,
especially if companies, websites and shops start asking for eircodes.
Is compiling a list of unique household identifiers and making it
available under more liberal terms desirable?
If I know my neighbour's eircode, is putting it into OSM OK, or should I
ask their permission?
Also, partial coverage is not nearly so useful as other postcodes since
eircodes are secret random codes with no proximity information.
One reason to support openpostcode in OSM would be to have a simple open
code-to-XY that works for Ireland, since our official postcode system
will not be providing it, but I'd guess that's more map UI issue, to
display the code alongside lat/lon for Ireland.
ld
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