I did cast my vote in this ballot, but came very close not to doing so because I found the attitude on both sides of the very long debate quite off-putting, with people who made quite reasonable sounding suggestions being given very abrupt replies. I think this included a suggestion that we should define an acceptance threshold for the licence change to go ahead. I also got very bored trying to follow the arguments, and didn't have time to try to check the validity of the points made.<br>
<br>That said, in the end I voted for the proposal because it seems to me that the difference between ODBL and what we have now is so small that I find it hard to believe that many contributors will really refuse to change. (I see the Public Domain or otherwise debate as a separate issue).<br>
<br>Matija's point is very valid though that we ought to know what we would do if a 'significant' proportion refused to re-licence their data - it would be silly to split the project, or lose a lot of people's contributions just for this change (which as I say is in my mind very small). I therefore support the proposal that we define a cut off for how much data we are willing to lose for the change to go ahead.<br>
<br>Graham.<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/12/27 Matija Nalis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mnalis-openstreetmap-osmflist@voyager.hr">mnalis-openstreetmap-osmflist@voyager.hr</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 01:31:28AM +0000, Matt Amos wrote:<br>
> the OSMF member vote has been closed, and the results from 270 members<br>
> polled** are:<br>
<br>
</div>Thanks for the results, Matt<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Approved the process: 132<br>
> Did not approve the process: 16<br>
> Didn't vote: 122<br>
><br>
> alternatively,<br>
><br>
> Approval rate: 89%<br>
> Turnout rate: 55%<br>
<br>
</div>Those numbers frighten me very much, if we are to proceed with ODbL<br>
implementation plan as charted.<br>
<br>
I would actually expect OSMF membership to be *more* interested in the<br>
license change issues than the average OSM contributor; but even if we<br>
assume that it is representative of the general OSM population, it is<br>
terrible !<br>
<br>
If the general OSM poll (that is: "do you relicense" question) has the<br>
similar results, it would be catastrophic. Data from *more than half* of the<br>
users would have to be removed. Add to that the multiple editors of the the<br>
same points/ways/relations and we could easily end up with something like<br>
2/3 (or more) of the map being deleted (or at least very heavily damaged).<br>
<br>
Even *much* better results (like "only" 20% of the map being destroyed)<br>
would be IMO too horrible to justify the advantages the clearer license<br>
brings. Not to mention the social problems such an action would bring: this<br>
project thrives on enthusiasm of users; if much of someones work of several<br>
years gets removed because *someone else* didn't want (or bother) to<br>
relicense, there is no way such guy/gal is going to spread a nice word about<br>
OSM, much less contribute ever again.<br>
<br>
IMHO, anything more than 10% of data being destroyed (and that is probably<br>
less than 10% of the users) would bring much more damage than good to the<br>
project. (And that is assuming ODbL *is* the perfect solution to the problem,<br>
which it might turn out not to be).<br>
<br>
Some time ago[1] I tried (without much success) to get some answers what the<br>
Board thinks would be a acceptable number of user/data loss under which the<br>
license change should proceed.<br>
<br>
With this results of OSMF vote; I think it is essential that this is cleared<br>
out before we proceed with implementation plan. Actually, I think the OSMF<br>
membership should be asked about it.<br>
<br>
Therefore, I would ask the Board to make the following poll to the<br>
OSMF membership before proceeding with implementation plan:<br>
<br>
"We should proceed with change of license only if that would result in:<br>
<br>
(a) no data being removed at all<br>
(b) less than 1% of the data being removed<br>
(c) less than 5% of the data being removed<br>
(d) less than 10% of the data being removed<br>
(e) less than 15% of the data being removed<br>
(f) less than 20% of the data being removed<br>
(g) less than 25% of the data being removed<br>
(h) less than 35% of the data being removed<br>
(i) less than 50% of the data being removed<br>
(j) less than 75% of the data being removed<br>
(k) less than 90% of the data being removed<br>
(l) no matter what the loss of data"<br>
<br>
(I understand that (a) actually means heavily changing the implementation/backup plan<br>
in the lines of having multiple-licensed data to coexist, and that (l) is lunatic, but<br>
I wanted to give full range of options.)<br>
<br>
Then the median of acceptable loss should be calculated, and announced (and<br>
used) as a limit at which we abort license change implementation plan (and<br>
rethink what to do) instead of proceeding with data removal/archiving.<br>
<br>
Matija<br>
<br>
[1] Message-ID: <20091210003726.GA15684@eagle102.home.lan><br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Opinions above are GNU-copylefted.<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Dr. Graham Jones<br>Hartlepool, UK<br>email: <a href="mailto:grahamjones139@gmail.com">grahamjones139@gmail.com</a><br>