[OSM-talk] What3words

[lester at lsces.co.uk]

Sent from my android device so quoting is crap!

-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl>
To: Daniel Kastl <daniel at georepublic.de>
Cc: talk at openstreetmap.org
Sent: Sun, 22 Nov 2015 12:57
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] What3words

On 2015-11-22 13:49, Daniel Kastl wrote:


The difference in their proprietary system (if you want to call
address systems in in countries closed and proprietary) is, that when
their API (and "algorithm") goes away, you won't find any address
anymore. It's totally unreliable to depend on a proprietary API to
locate an address, and a waste of time to add such data to OSM in my
opinion.

From their website:

If we, what3words ltd, are ever unable to maintain the what3words technology or make arrangements for it to be maintained by a third-party (with that third-party being willing to make this same commitment), then we will release our source code into the public domain. We will do this in such a way and with suitable licences and documentation to ensure that any and all users of what3words, whether they are individuals, businesses, charitable organisations, aid agencies, governments or anyone else can continue to rely on the what3words system.

Translation- if we can't make money from this then you are on your own  .... 
There is nothing stopping anybody creating an open source alternative now perhaps directly extending the already open source data?
what3words is not a good base to start from o why would we provide them free support?

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