OpenStreetMap reverse geocoding zip codes?

Question

I'm working on a blackberry application and would like to use the OpenStreetMap reverse geo-coding to get an address and/or a street corner. I found Nominatim but it doesn't seem to do zip codes in the US (it has UK postal codes though), is there a OpenStreetMap API to get zipcodes, or some other free/open licensed reverse geocoding or address to zipcode data/API

note: this is for a final school project(but as this is a API/data source question I feel its fair to ask)

note2: another person has already done a google maps version, I'm looking for something w/ a Creative Commons type license, please don't mention google maps -be careful, I found at least one API that claims to be open but seems to be based around both OSM , google, and other data (ie, it didn't have the rights to give away to its data).

Answer 1

I use Geonames.org. It offers different webservices around geocoding.

The Postcode WS will help you:
Postcode for Washington, USA:

• Via HTML page
• Via Webservice (XML response)

There's a commercial offer but I don't know if the service is totally free. There's a limit of 3000 requests per day and ip.

Answer 2

You can reverse-geocode US ZIP codes with geocoder.us. Their geocoder is open source (GPLv2 or Perl Artistic License) and they encourage writing code using their web services API for non-commercial purposes. This is in fact the service OpenStreetMap.org is using for US ZIP codes.

Also have a look at this overview of geocoders.

Answer 3

I found an opensource geocoder and have started to work on the autotooling. on extendthereach dot com slash products OpenSourceGeocoder

Here is my github, but it is not ready yet: http://github.com/h4ck3rm1k3/AutoToolsGeocoder

In theory we could use osm data with this, but I will have to look into it more.