OpenStreetMap is not just about making a “free of charge” map, it is about making an “open” map without legal restrictions. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_License and http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ
Which says you can charge for distributing OSM data if you want. So if PON codes restrict that, then their license is not compatible with OSM.
The page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Republic_of_Ireland_postal_addresses#A_New_Way_Of_Post_Coding_Ireland may be of interest.
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All you have to do is contact GPS Ireland and under a license (does not imply cost) agreement you can have all the detail you require.
Its simple really - let me explain again - if someone is not charging for goods or services with PON Codes included then there will be no charge for using them. The license agreement re-affirms this with the user and the algorithm is exchanged on this understanding.
Not sure why the subject has been raised here and comment is not as a result of contacting GPS Ireland to get the full detail - I am looking forward to discussing all matters on a one to one personal level - just waiting for that call or e-mail.
+353 21 4832990 info@gpsireland.ie
You clearly don’t get it, the problem is the “license”, not the cost. You can not license out an idea in Europe, you can not copyright it and you can’t patent it.
**Edit: because of censoring requests… I’m going to change this:/Emj:
**Original:
I have no idea what you want to gain with this but it’s clearly a case of severe Moderation edit: censored, if you had any intention of publishing anything usefull at all the story would be different.
Comment:
I was under the impression that Gary had posted the first messages as well, now I see that that isn’t the case at all. And he isn’t astroturfing (making it seem like lots of people use his software), but rather just making publicity for his idea. By writing things in the I’ve only managed to give him more publicity for his idea. Sorry for that…
Please provide a contact e-mail address as I would like to take up your latest post with you personally!!
Again I will add that I am open to discussing anyone’s licensing requirements with them personally - I have provided contact details - no-one has taken time to contact me yet!
Could this be discussed in public? There are probably more people interested in this discussion, especially when it involves OSM,
-peter
+1
Here in OSM we like to do the discussing in public.
BTW, personally I don’t think you’ll convince lots of people here to use PONCs. Instead of telling us how cool they are and asking us to use them and ask you for licensing details, why don’t you set up some cool application with OSM+PONCs to show them off?
Why should someone want to use POCN when there are free and open alternatives ?
i think POCN is not something we are waiting for in openstreetmap
You could also use the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System or a modified version of it like below
coordinate : ABABAB… (A = lon, B = lat)
let’s say we want to use a…z and 0…9, then we have 36 combinations per digit/character
lon : 180 → -180 = 360 degrees
lat : 90 → -90 = 180 degrees
when using 6 characters = 3 digits for lon, we already have a lon resolution of 360/(36^3) = 0.0077 and a lat resolution of 0.0038
just some thoughts…
I have moderated a post from emj due to threats of legal action against the OSM foundation and me. Not because I agree with the person who complained about it, but purely to prevent OSM to become subject to legal actions.
Threatening with legal actions when there is ample room to defend yourself by explaining why the other person is not correct in it’s assessment and going into discussion about this is not a mature way of handling disputes in opinion. So much so that I would like to say it’s childish. Though I also would like to ask forum members not to start such rather useless discussions in the first place.
In 20 years I’ve never been censored on an forum/BBS. I’m Shocked, and pretty hurt.
Well, what can I say, I’m sorry. What should I’ve done else? What should you’ve done else? Can you advise please?
The posts pushing PON should be removed because they are clearly advertisements for an commercial product.
I don’t know what Gary did, I emailed him. Lets see what happens, I really don’t think you should bother with this anymore, this is something between Gary and me.
Emj, this has gone a bit too far to delete everything and pretend nothing happened. I don’t know about you but I’m not threatened by law suits every day. Besides that, PONC and postcodes have a relevance to OSM and the subject would turn up another day anyway.
Having seen this discussion, knowing the reactions of OSMers on commercial licenses and the actions performed by certain people when they receive negative reactions, I don’t think PONC has a bright future with OSM.
Also, I don’t think we should spend more time with arguing about what’s been said and done. I know now that there is little chance of agreement.
Guys, I think we needn’t worry too much about the closed nature of the pon codes system. Notwithstanding the domain name “irishpostcodes.ie”, pon codes are nothing of the sort. The Republic of Ireland currently has no postal code system. A continually postponed project is in progress to choose and implement a scheme of postcodes and, unless Gary cares to correct me, no choice has been made as to how they should work.
That being so, it is at best premature and at worst, sneaky, to promote pon codes under such a domain name. Given that there are an infinite number of ways we could choose codes for locations, any scheme will only be adopted if it either:
a) is official and ubiquitous
b) exhibits sufficient other qualities to encourage an ambivalent public of its merits
Neither is true of pon codes. So far, the poll on http://irishpostcodes.ie/ indicates that 201 people on an island of 5 million might be open to option (b). Perhaps a larger sample will show us the facts on this.
BTW, I’ve worked out a way to compress Irish National Grid references using gzip and some proprietary foo - I’ll be happy to negotiate a licence with anybody keen on my innovation and I’ll allow OSM to have one for free as long as they don’t pass on the usage rights to anybody else.
From an OSM point of view postcodes generated by an algorithm would be great. It’s a massive amount less effort to reverse engineer a lat,lon ↔ postcode algorithm than to manually locate the lat,lon of every postcode.
I wouldn’t be surprised if after the ROI have decided upon and implemented such a system free the post code are still collecting UK postcodes.
There was mentioning of geohash earlier in this thread which can do the same. It needs a few characters more, but if you somehow manage to remove all the oceans from the equation then you’d probably also have something like PONC but without the license debate.
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