
GeoDjango and the UK postcode database - gthank
http://chris-lamb.co.uk/2009/09/30/geodjango-and-uk-postcode-database/
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robin_reala
Background for non-UK residents: the postcode database is controlled by Royal
Mail and isn’t public domain. If you want to use the data you must licence it
at fairly expensive rates first. There’s a project to create a crowdsourced
clone of this data ( <http://freethepostcode.org/> ) and it’s beginning to get
there, but it’s by no means complete.

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run4yourlives
_postcode database is controlled by Royal Mail and isn’t public domain_

That makes no sense at all to me. How the heck can you function with people's
addresses half secret?

Strange.

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sharpn
The data isn't secret, but commercial access to the database is restricted. If
you want to find a few postcodes (I think <=5 per day) it's free. More, or if
you want a manipulatable copy of the dataset you need to pay.

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run4yourlives
Again, crazy.

The only thing it does is keep postcode methods of geo-location unavailable to
the UK public. Canada, Australia, the US and most of Europe are already moving
forward here because they don't have this restriction... the UK loses out.

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lamby
Cory Doctorow writes:

This isn't capitalism, nor is it socialism. It's a kind of corporatism in
which the risk―the money spent speculatively mapping Britain, arguing in
Parliament, drawing up postal code boundaries―is entirely assumed by the
public, but the reward―access and profit-taking―are entirely given to the
private sector.

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robin_reala
Same goes for the Ordnance Survey. Luckily, they’re in the process of being
taken apart online by OpenStreetMap. Having said that, their paper maps are
wonderful.

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kingkilr
I'm fairly convinced the most badass part of that is that he can just do
".distinace.m" and get it in meters. Of course there are other units if you
prefer:
[http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/co...](http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/trunk/django/contrib/gis/measure.py#L87)
:)

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jbronn
The distance/area objects in GeoDjango are an under-appreciated feature. The
docs have a more readable version of the supported units:

<http://geodjango.org/docs/measure.html#supported-units>

