Friday 1 February 2013

Local recycling

I wanted to take some stuff to the local recycling site and was turned away because they were rebuilding it. I hadn't seen any warning about this so I searched for it by name - only I got the name wrong. I had added the site to OSM in 2008 and added the name from memory as Humberdale Waste Site when it is really Humberfield Household Waste Recycling Site.

What surprised me was that the top of my Google search came back with the OSM Node Browse results for the site - presumably because nothing else matched my erroneous name that I searched for. It probably won't work now anyway because I've corrected the name.

I should just add that I used the word Google above without stating that Google is a registered trademark. I didn't have to say that because I was not attempting to provide any services that Google offer, nor was I trying to pass off my goods or services as though they were Google's. I mention it because of a recent OSMF missive about a newly trademarked word that they are frantically removing all references to from our Wiki and Help system. We gather data and publish it under an open licence. I'm not sure I see how that might breach a patent troll's dubious US trademark that was refused in the EU, but then I'm not a lawyer, all the happier for that.

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