Mapping Hacks

Seen on the OpenStreetmap list amidst a long discussion about proprietary postcode and address geocoding data sets; the OpenGeoDB. It’s a German-language project to create a free-of-cost, free-to-access dataset of address and postal code data including German-speaking regions of Austria and Switzerland.

Next to a open base map, a free geocoder is the next most important widget in the geohacker’s toolbox. UK citizens are waiitng patiently for movement on the new National Spatial Address Infrastructure, which will “provide a single, definitive address database and supporting spatial infrastructure for a wide range of central and local government programmes and also for commercial business activities.” [1]. Oh, wait; it’s going to be given over without public assessment or competitive tender to the Ordnance Survey and placed under Crown Copyright.

Does use of government time, funds and policy to create an infrastructure explicitly directed at geomarketing seem reasonable? Particularly while Office of Fair Trading is conducting a “market study” into potentially unfair competition by monopoly public information holders? While the ODPM is only listening to a few voices on a subject of much wider interest, it must seem reasonable somehow.

Meanwhile, the debate on the legality of reassembling a collection of facts about postcodes and addresses goes round and round; hackers talk about “quadrant” schemes for global postcodes, or new grid systems unencumbered by obscure IP rights and outdated legal instruments such as Crown Copyright. These are nice ideas, with a kind of abstract cleanliness, but they don’t connect to the ‘real-world’ spatial infrastructure of addresses and the great utility of existing postal schemes. OpenGeoDB is a great effort, but it’s lamentable that it’s necessary.

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