[OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources

[Grant Slater]

On 9 December 2010 23:15, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> Grant Slater <openstreetmap at ...> writes:
>
>>If at some mythical future date the OSMF decided to propose a new
>>license; they would have to be damn sure at being able to convince at
>>least 67% of us that this new proposed license was "free and open" on
>>our terms.
>
> Well, 67% of 'active contributors' however defined.  The definition of active
> contributor can probably be altered by the simple expedient of blocking
> contributions from those who don't click 'agree' to any proposed new policy.
>
> Of course the current OSMF management act in good faith and would never
> do such a thing, but in theory it is possible.
>

OSMF would have to block 1000s [1] of contributors/mappers for a
period of at least 10 months, stop them from creating new accounts and
do this all without upsetting the rest of the contributors
(electorate). While a theoretical, I simply do not see it happening.
OSMF would end up with a rapidly ageing dead copy of the database and
we the contributors would move onto a new-OSM.

1: In last 30 days 12194 users have edited nodes alone. Source:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/stats/data_stats.html

Regards
 Grant