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

[Rob Myers]

On 07/15/2010 10:38 AM, John Smith wrote:
> On 15 July 2010 18:55, Rob Myers<rob at robmyers.org>  wrote:
>> OSM has a clear mandate for the change. A majority (more than half) of the
>> electorate voted, and a clear majority of the votes were for the change.
>
> Less than 49% of those eligible to vote, voted for the change, I don't
> see this as a majority, just an exercise in the manipulation of
> statistics to preserve a predetermined outcome.

By the same logic we find that only 6.05% of those eligible to vote 
actually voted against the change.

But non-votes are not "yes" or "no" votes. We cannot claim that they 
support or oppose relicencing.

Given this, the facts are still that a majority voted and a clear 
majority of the votes were in favour.

Would I rather more people had voted? Yes. But that doesn't invalidate 
the outcome.

> Not to mention that was only OSM-F members, we keep getting told it's
> the contributors/communities that matters so much, but the community
> hasn't been asked.

The informal poll here indicates strong support from the community -

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License#Vote

- Rob.