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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Excluding people from a project based
on their opinion is always a problematic, if not outright
dangerous thing to do. OSMF has to be tolerant towards opposing
and controversial topic views. I.e. imho it has to accept that
people disagree on the license decisions and even actively "fight"
to change OSMF's policy on the license or contributor terms. It
imho also has to accept that some members might have
"non-mainstream" views like distributing the database over git or
the likes. For board members these are then up to the democratic
process of the elections to decide whether the larger OSMF body
agrees with these views or not. <br>
<br>
What OSMF however does not have to tolerate are people who resort
to personal attacks or are inflammatory towards individuals or
groups of individuals, or deliberately spreading lies and
falsehoods about the project or its community. In a vastly diverse
and international community Nazi-like behaviour particularly
should not have any place (well for that matter it shouldn't have
a place anywhere).<br>
<br>
It imho also doesn't have to accept individuals who are actively
and deliberately trying to destroy the project as a whole. E.g.
because they have commercial or other interests in seeing OSM
fail. <br>
<br>
Therefore imho if the only objection to Mike is that he hasn't
agreed to the license change process or that he has
"non-mainstream" views, then that is not a reason to exclude him
from OSMF membership nor from running for the board. If there is a
case to exclude him, it has to be based on him being offensive,
intolerant and or actively and deliberately campaigning to harm
the project.<br>
<br>
In the case of Edwin, given that he has been an active mapper of
quality data, I would probably grant him OSMF membership and thus
allow him to vote, but deny him the right to run for the OSMF
board. Board members, as representatives of osm, have to be held
to high standards of conduct. Edwin clearly does not meet the
standard of respectful and tolerant communication as he has shown
over a long period on the forums, as well as in his manifesto.<br>
<br>
Is there a legal framework to allow OSMF membership, but deny
candidacy for board elections?<br>
<br>
Kai<br>
<br>
On 8/25/2012 10:25 AM, Henk Hoff wrote:<br>
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<blockquote
cite="mid:CACXnZDbu7SehSdORDSbwUMibqiaUGkayCWHHnYbETT504nNoSA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>As you mentioned Mike is also active in a competing project.</div>
<div>With Mike being an outspoken opponent of the way OSMF is
going forward, I would suggest that Mike focusses his time on
the competing project where (I hope) he's not seen as such an
outspoken opponent.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Henk</div>
<div><br>
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<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2012/8/25 Tobias Knerr <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:osm@tobias-knerr.de"
target="_blank">osm@tobias-knerr.de</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im"><br>
</div>
Mike's behavior in the past was controversial for one
fundamental<br>
reason: Because he is an outspoken opponent of the current
Board's<br>
policy, and has repeatedly and loudly voiced this opinion. His
decision<br>
to not accept the Contributor Terms with his original account
is one of<br>
the, rather extreme, actions that he took based on that
position.<br>
However, disagreement with Board policy is not necessarily the
same as<br>
opposition to OSMF, or even OSM as a whole.<br>
<br>
The decision to reject his membership application may
justifiable based<br>
on his conflict of interest as a supporter of a competing
project.<br>
However, I'm not aware that such a strict standard was applied
to<br>
membership applications in the past, and I must therefore
assume that<br>
his intention to be a candidate in the upcoming election has
influenced<br>
the decision.<br>
<br>
This is troubling because it effectively limits the choices of
voters to<br>
candidates who are more or less in line with the current
board's<br>
opinions. This is not what the board's power to deny
membership should<br>
be used for!<br>
<br>
I believe that it would have been wise to accept Mike's
membership<br>
application, and trust the OSMF members to use their votes
responsibly.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Tobias<br>
</font></span>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
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