Grasshoppermind

It has often irritated me to see the contrast between the American and British approaches to geographical data. So much American data is free. So much British data is very expensive and it’s usage severely restricted by license in some way. So it’s great to see resources like Openstreetmap and Freethepostcode taking a grassroots approach to addressing the issue.

Openstreetmap is enlisting the help of enthusiasts armed with a handheld GPS to create an opensource, freely available, streetmap of the entire world.

This may take some time.

Especially as their homebrewed server rack oftens creaks under the strain and this makes editing a somewhat frustrating affair. But this is the early adopter zone and these issues tend to go with the territory (pun intended) .

Dan Karran and I have launched our own attempt to map the Isle of Man and to get the data onto Openstreetmap, so any Isle of Man readers who would like to assist, please get in touch.

Every UK reader with a GPS should visit Freethepostcode at least once and put in your Postcode and your Latitude and Longitude coordinates. Do your bit to create a free UK postcode coordinate list.