[thirty-six dragons]

The OpenPostcode http://tinyurl.com/openpostcode is a free, opensource, geolocation code for Ireland.

It is more accurate and more effective than proprietary codes.

The Government is still in the process of coming to a decision on postcodes for Ireland.

Assistance is requested in adding professional review for the OpenPostcode, testing, and promotion to Government.

[Capt'n Midnight]

The US can manage with a 5 digit post code
to get that level we'd need just one letter followed by two digits.

8 characters is geo tagging , way too much information


also either make the post codes very short, Italy / US 5 digit number
or very simple UK where the letters are short for real world post office locations

also all of NI uses BT1 (BelfasT)


I cba remembering a hash code for a GPS location.

[thirty-six dragons]

The OpenPostcode can work at any number of characters. 5, e.g., http://tinyurl.com/opcie/KFPXW, accurate to 150m x 115m. Or 3, http://tinyurl.com/opcie/KFP, accurate to 3.7km x 2.9km.

What do you mean 8 is "way too much information"? Maybe someone wants to do some geotagging. Then they can use 8 characters.

Ireland has two languages. There is no obvious answer for postcoding around city names.

In the USA they use the 5+4 to identify individual geographic areas - such as city blocks. 5 characters only gets you the local sorting office.

And, have you seen a map of UK postcodes lately - they are only loosely based on some city names. They're all over the place. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._areas_map.svg

[goonbeach]

Originally Posted by Capt'n Midnight

I cba remembering a hash code for a GPS location.

I agree - sure there is geohash and NAC codes already - looks like this is just a latter-day copy!

If there's going to be a postcode in Ireland can't be some act of opportunism.

This may be claimed as opensource but looks very like work done previously by others to me... check out Geohash, LocMi & NAC codes to name just a few... opensource should not be used as a badge of hounour to cover up others prior work!

[thirty-six dragons]

Originally Posted by goonbeach

I agree - sure there is geohash and NAC codes already - looks like this is just a latter-day copy!

If there's going to be a postcode in Ireland can't be some act of opportunism.

This may be claimed as opensource but looks very like work done previously by others to me... check out Geohash, LocMi & NAC codes to name just a few... opensource should not be used as a badge of hounour to cover up others prior work!

Well harsh and well unfounded, especially since the fact that none of this is new ground is the point. The OpenPostcode was begun as a proof of concept that indeed creating a geolocation postcode for Ireland was bog-standard ordinary. Pity sake, we've had simple grid references in our geography school books and old roadmaps since the year dot. And we are all aware of using higher base numbering systems for compressing numbers, especially hexadecimal; used in everything from HTML colours to MAC address to IP6.

To say that something is opensource isn't claiming a badge of honour - and hardly "opportunism". Seriously like. It is just straightforward fact - the algorithm in this precise exact case is opensource. Like it or lump it.

One could sit back all day long and harp away on forums about what is needed for the country and what should be done or one can actually do something.

There are other codes in the country, Loc8code, another smashing code available for Garmin devices, and GoCode, which is available online - but neither are opensource. So the bald fact is that neither you nor I can calculate back and forth between the codes and the coordinates. And then simply saying that an alternative is possible isn't enough.

The OpenPostcode is an actual working proof of concept. (By the way, links to geocoding generally are provided on site. There's a very long list of codes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoding. No one is shying away from the whole history of geocoding. No one is claiming to have invented anything remarkably new. It is an implementation.)

Geohashes are great. Came across them recently. They are in the public domain by the way. Even if I wanted to steal the idea I can't, it's already part of common science. Geohashes are not an implementation for postcodes - they use base32, use a very different algorithm, and are designed for use in URLs and databases. They are based on global coordinates so are not related to a single country. I must add a link to them though in my coverage of other codes.

NAC codes are base30 and again a global system. The coding here is proprietary and closed. Also works in three dimensions. I won't be adding a link. I don't care much for proprietary codes and they offer nothing to a solution.

Is using a base25 numbering system any different?

Well slightly; and much more intuitive to calculate. A base 25 number is the square of 5. So any grid reference inside a 5x5 grid can be referenced as two numbers; 0 to 4, and 0 to 4. Lets go for latitude 2 and longitude 3. That's 2 and 3 - or even just write it as "23". Now the benefit of using base25 comes into play. Treat this as a base5 number and convert it to a base25 number and you are left with a single character encoding both coordinates. 23 as a base 5 number in ordinary decimal is just 2x5+3=13, which is D in base25. The reverse is as simple. Keep doing this with more characters and you can reference positions on a national scale to a high degree of accuracy with little calculation and compact codes.

It's not exactly rocket science or any bright new maths but it is a working proof of concept - actually even proving your point. There's nothing new in all of this and nothing that's a badge of honour. And nothing worth millions of taxpayer money.

So then we are left with the question as to why the government of a country on its knees would countenance spending millions on a proprietary system which none of us will be free to calculate.

[thirty-six dragons]

Originally Posted by goonbeach

I agree - sure there is geohash and NAC codes already - looks like this is just a latter-day copy!

If there's going to be a postcode in Ireland can't be some act of opportunism.

This may be claimed as opensource but looks very like work done previously by others to me... check out Geohash, LocMi & NAC codes to name just a few... opensource should not be used as a badge of hounour to cover up others prior work!

Can I ask just where your involvement or interest lies in opensource? I'd be interested.

[goonbeach]

Ian, (the teacher)

you have asked for a professional review of your openpostcode in order to promote it to Government.

As such, you are asking for an assessment of your work as suitable to become a national postcode.

The are 2 points related here:

1. Is it your work and can you declare it as yours with an opensource license.
2. Is it suitable as a National postcode.

You efforts to gain notoriety for your yourself and your college are admirable, however as a teacher (of maths?) you must be aware that declaring an algorithm as yours is frought with difficulty and may be considered as no more than opportunism or perhaps better expressed as naivity!

Taking point 1 first:

1. Opensource - the question here is if the origins of your work are opensource in the first place to allow you stake claim and in turn declare it as opensource. This is a legal matter really but on the face of it with all the prior art in the public domain, some open and some not, this would be a difficult one to prove. It seems to me that you have not developed something unique, it has elements of lots of other prior work. Your mention of the use of Base 25 is a little misleading. Mathematically the use of any base holds no IP and is well tested. In this case the use of Base25 is not a mathmetaical decision as you suggest but more one related to the character set to be used which in turn is dictated by the need to avoid certain character combinations. Again this is a well worked art - not unique to yourself and difficult to claim ownership over in order to go on to declare open source. I am not a legal expert but I do know enough about this matter to be able to state that if you want to declare your work as opensource - there has to be no doubt that it is your work, you hold the Intellectual Property over it and therefore you can control how it is used or not used. Quite honestly in this case, a simple formula well used by others would be difficult to claim any rights over. The Ornanace Survey have been using a base25 solution as part of the Irish National grid manifestation on their consumer mapping since the 60/70's. So definitely nothing new there!

2. Suitability as a postcode - this is even a more difficult asking and the opensource community is not necessarily best placed to assess this. To help you with this we would have to know what the requirements of a postcode are, and how your formula is satisfying those and what unique characteristics it offers that others do not have (opensource is not a postcode characteristic - it is merely a licensing term). However, lets be rational, a formula is not a postcode. If we examine the UK postcode it is a whole service which reflects postal sorting operations, a related address database and a management system - a long way from an arbitary algorithm. So on the face of it what you have is not a postcode in its current manifestation. Could it be - well again we would have to know what needs it satisfies. However, I am certain that if the Government were to adopt it, it would not allow it to be opensource any more. They would need to immediately close it. Why?- simply because a postcode is utility and like all utilities;- electricity, water, mobile phone networks etc they must be controlled and managed and the idea that anyone could create a postcode using a simple formula would be no more acceptable than allowing anyone to set up a mobile phone network without a license. Allowing anyone use a simple formula to generate postcodes at will, would result in multiple conflicting postcodes and address databases of varying quality, and such competition would reduce the value and obviate against anyone spending any money to maintain such a system. There are those who might quote the UK postcode which has now been "freed". However we must be careful in considering that. The postcode itself is not free or open - it is the results of the postcode that are. The Royal Mail is still the only one who can create UK postcodes, they take the cost of creating, managing and maintaining - and have sole rights to that - no one else can create a postcode - it is therefore not an openpostcode or even an opensource postcode. At the other end, using UK postcode groupings is now free (after 50 years of not being free to pay for establishment, marketing, encouragement etc all of which have achieved 95% penetration). However, the individual delivery point is not free or open;- and will never be as there has to be a revenue to fund maintaining the system itself. Major case in Canada relating to this as we speak!
Therefore, does your formula satisfy the needs of an Irish postcode? Not sure on that without knowing what the assessed and considered needs are and that's something for a major needs assessment by those contracting the system in the first place. But as an opensource algorithm is that suitable in itself - the answer is most likely not!. The simple fact is that to control quality and to generate revenue to maintian a reliable system if the Government bought into your solution tomorrow, they would straight away close it down and remove the opensource badge it claims. You and your college might do well out of that indeed in notoriety and financial terms but if opensource is your only motivation then you would be quickly disappointed. As for Government paying, that would not be an issue as they certainly would have to outlay large sums to pay for acceptance/adoption. Getting people to use something en mass does not come cheap and not without incentivisation. Huge marketing and promotion went into encouraging the UK population to use their postcode over decades. And that was when using the postcode would speed up delivery. Nowadays, its doubtful if a postcode would do that at all. In fact most likely there would be little measureable benefit to individuals - most benefit would be to Government and especailly for taxation and fraud purposes. So the Government will spend multiples of millions to get people to use this. So spending to close an open source will be insignificant in comparison and a given! However, they may well have their own closed source solution already and no need to take time and resources unpicking an opensource formula of unkown origins.

In the round therefore, is it worth people spending time on providing you assessment of your formula to help you present it to Governemnt - some might think so and I will leave it to them. I have given my 2 shillings worth here and my instinct is that you are wasting your time. In all cases, NAC geohash etc - open or closed they have not gained any popular use - why, well like your own formula, they just produce a random output of characters which is visually insignificant and not something humans will naturally want to hang on to!

Just my opinions and you did ask for them - good luck to you and your college in your endeavours...

PS - your question re my involvement in opensource - I have followed and contributed to mapping (open and otherwise) for quite some time and have well formed and informed ideas on such matters - up to you if you want to accept them relating to this case or not...

[thirty-six dragons]

I'm a little troubled here Goonbeach. You're a new user and you are sounding very like the same person who owns another geohash code in use in Garmin devices - the same person who has contacting people with all manner of silly allegations about me. It would be amounting to serious harassment at this stage.

Why do you refer to a "college"? What is that about?

What is this about seeking notoriety? These are very personal comments on a coding forum. And I would say out of place. Does every hacker in the country have to answer the charge of just seeking "notoriety"?

Your understanding of OpenSource is weak. And yes my algorithm is based on past history in the public domain and contributes new code. The code, the Javascript coding, the spreadsheet coding, is opensource. You can read the source. I give you permission to copy and legally use the source. Opensource is not about patents. I have no desire patent a mathematical algorithm. There is no need. I shouldn't want anyone not to use it.

The algorithm and implementation together as an Irish postcode is unique. I do have copyright over the coding. However, it is not a trademark. It is not a trade secret. It is not a patent. This are entirely different things in law.

OSI never used base25 for mapping. You're confused. ITM uses metre coordinates from a false origin. The "Irish Grid" is a 25 box grid of the Island - identified by letters. No base25 maths is ever used. Within each box the distance easting and northing is given from the box's false origin. Nothing at all like the OpenPostcode algorithm. You can read more at http://www.osi.ie/OSI/media/OSI/Cont...d.pdf?ext=.pdf

As for suitability as a postcode: you can read a full analysis of what is required for a postcode and a full analysis of the Government's hybrid proprosal at the http://tinyurl.com/openpostcode website.

Your comment that the Government would immediately "close up" an opensource code if it were used as a postcode is nonsense. Truly. Governments everywhere, even in Ireland, are actively turning to opendata and opensource systems. There's a hell of a lot of good work being done in opendata in Ireland. In the UK they opened their postcode. The electronic voting system failed in part because it was a closed-system - not open to public scrutiny. Public scrutiny, correction of data through use, that is the true management of public data. Not centralised management by a private company.

Indeed the Comreg report (http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/pub...ComReg0507.pdf) advocated that any code would have to be open.

"It is a public postcode that is proposed, not a “hidden” or technical code"

Now if you wish to continue the discussion you need to begin to focus on specifics and also avoid further personal comments.

[thirty-six dragons]

By the way - there is no "notoriety" nor "financial gain" from this project.

It is opensource. Anyone is free to take it, rename it, repurpose it, and to make a living providing support services - but it won't be me. I love the job I already have and it pays well.

[thirty-six dragons]

Originally Posted by goonbeach

Ian, (the teacher)
like your own formula, they just produce a random output of characters which is visually insignificant and not something humans will naturally want to hang on to!

Far from "random" - in fact very very precise. More precise than Loc8code - about 4 times more precise. The word, perhaps, you were looking for is arbitrary. However arbitrary is a great thing. No language bias. Future proof. Fair.

NAC and geohash were never designed as postcodes. They are, I believe, mostly used for encoding coordinates for URLs. They cover the globe so have a needless length. They also use an inappropriate alphabet for postcodes.

I often wonder about people's fear of arbitrary characters - and yet we all remember our own phone numbers (maybe not anyone else's, but we don't need to). We remember our PPS numbers. We remember all sorts of things.

A person only ever needs to remember one postcode - their own. Six characters. Not hard.

People in other countries don't actually go around remembering each other's postcodes! Some people can't even remember their own full USA zipcodes (9 digits) or UK postcodes without looking them up. People keep postcodes in address books, smart phones, satnavs, and databases. It's not a memory game.

What is important is that they are easy to read and to transcribe and perhaps have a checksum.

No one ever rings Joe Duffy to complain when they have to submit an electricity meter reading and they have to check their MPRN number - that's 11 digits long and important, but you still don't have to learn it off. (http://www.esb.ie/esbnetworks/en/dom...ering/mprn.jsp)

What code available for Ireland doesn't use a mixed assortment of letters?

Is there one you prefer or want to recommend?

[goonbeach]

I have responded to your request for review and have freely given you my opinion (informed). It is entirely up to you if you do or do not want to use it.

As before I wish you every success with your endeavours.

[thirty-six dragons]

Thanks.

The code has a smashing new URL now. OpenPostcode.org and links to maps are as simple as, for example, OPCie.org/VG36, while code hosting is now with SourceForge.org where it ought to be.

[thirty-six dragons]

Simple but effective Android App available at https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...m.OpenPostcode or just search for postcode on the Android App Store.

Best postcode in the country; open source; free to use; free to adapt; and now mobile.

[thirty-six dragons]

The OpenPostcode demo page has been smartened up a bit at http://opcie.org and now includes simple access to international implementations of the code.

Still using the same algorithm and inspired by the base-32 public domain Geohash code for URL-safe encoding of coordinates; the Geohash-36 is an implementation of the OpenPostcode tweaked for best performance for URLs, databases, and tweets to encode global coordinates. It is not recommended for human memory or communication as it is case-sensitive. As base-36 instead of 32 it offers a more precise code than the original Geohash and using the OpenPostcode algorithm it aligns neighbouring codes in a more orderly fashion when compared with the Geohash-32. It also avoids the language problems of Geohash-32 with the exclusion now of vowels from the alphabet.

For example, testing the Geohash-36 on a helipad on an oil rig in the Gulf of Suez, G59r3Cb9NJ will get you to the middle of "H" blindfolded (for legal reasons, do not try it!).

http://opcie.org/G59r3Cb9NJ-m

(The checksum at the end is not strictly necessary but in this case it helps identify it uniquely as Geohash-36 from any other implementation of the OpenPostcode algorithm and it also checks the validity of the code. In many instances and implementations it could be ignored.)

The code remains opensource and free to use and adapt.

[firkin]

Wow. Great job. I've just stumbled across this thread.
This is a really great idea. The fact its open source is inspired.

You should really push to get this more widely known. I think if more people knew about this they would use it and it could really take off.

I wonder if there are any geography/maths departments in the Universities and I.T.s that might be interested in contributing to/ using/promoting this?

You could talk to the people at the Irish part of Open Street Map. they might be interested in linking up with you or give advice.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Ireland

Might Google Ireland or Microsoft Ireland be of any help? I think they would welcome a postcode for Ireland and there is no sign of an official one coming anytime soon. An open source, community based one might just be the project that would interest them? I know Microsoft is helping Open Street Map. They've provided free hi-res satellite images to the project.

Perhaps you could make it more clear that

*businesses can use this for commercial use with out charge forever.
*and that because its open source they needn't worry about you ever pulling the shutters down on the project now or in the future. In essence this project is the public's forever.

I think that's key. Getting people who would use this day to day to understand that its truly free and that they own it as much as you or anyone else.

One thing that did strike me as odd are the comments from goonbeach. I think you are on the money when you guessed he is a sock puppet for someone with a hidden agenda/competing commercial product.

Don't be put off. This is a really great idea with huge potential. And the fact goonbeach [or who ever] is trying hard to knock it proves you're doing something right.

Keep up the great work.