GeoNames Forum

See : http://www.zillow.com/labs/NeighborhoodBoundaries.htm

Does it make sense for geonames to integrate the data ?

Sami

Hi Sami

It is a fantastic data set and it would be great to integrate it into GeoNames. A neighbourhood reverse geocoding service based on the data is already available :
http://www.geonames.org/export/#neighbourhood

Unfortunatly we cannot integrate if fully into the GeoNames database. Zillow have released it under a cc-by-sa license which is not as free as GeoNames cc-by license. See the blog posting for more information :
http://geonames.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/neighbourhood-reverse-geocoding/

I have posted in the zillow forum to ask whether they might change the license : http://www.zillow.com/forum/site/ViewThread.htm?tid=18623

Cheers

Marc

Hey,

well, in case they wouldn't accept removing the copyleft, wouldn't it make sense for geonames to change its license by adding a copyleft ?

When you think about it : a copyleft could protect your project and make sure nobody takes the geonames data and releases it as something non free.

Another possibility might be to provide dual licensing. For instance, there could be a 'light' version of geonames available under CC-BY, and the 'full' version available under CC-BY-SA.. That could probably cause confusion, but it's worth thinking about it, isn't it ?

Regards,
Sami

Hi Sami

I have answered to your question in the blog posting :
http://geonames.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/neighbourhood-reverse-geocoding/#comment-7311

Cheers

Marc