[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass

[Andy Allan]

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 12:12 PM, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:

> The correct way to re-license a project is to fork it.

I whole-heartedly disagree. Do you think that wikipedia should have
forked for their relicensing? Or Mozilla? They managed to find ways to
achieve relicensing without the massive upheaval of starting a new
project - instead they brought everyone along with them and built on
their success.

Forking is what happens to projects when they fail, and I don't
believe anyone here wants OpenStreetMap to fail.

> But the proponents
> of the ODbL don't have the courage to do that.  Instead they are trying to
> do it by attrition.  First they give newbies no choice.  Eventually, they
> hope, the number of newbies and new content will be overwhelming.

Interesting accusation. Are you accusing all ODbL proponents of having
this plan? Or just the LWG? Or do you care to name anyone in
particular? Because otherwise your accusations aren't very
constructive.

> If they had any guts they'd have forked the project.  And they don't have
> the guts to put it to a straight vote either.  With no deadline there's
> never a point at which anyone can say they failed.
>
> How much time is needed?  Everything is in place, the LWG has had several
> years to prepare.  If there isn't a clear majority by September 1st then I'd
> say the relicensing has failed.

Thanks, that is what I was asking. By clear majority do you mean a
clear majority of respondents, or a clear majority of active
contributors, or a clear majority of all contributors? And would you
confirm what %age equates to a clear majority?

Cheers,
Andy