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

[Rob Myers]

On 07/15/2010 11:39 PM, John Smith wrote:
> On 16 July 2010 08:32, Rob Myers<rob at robmyers.org>  wrote:
>> If we are allowed to arbitrarily redefine how votes should be counted then,
>> as I say, only 6.05% of the total possible electorate voted against
>> relicencing.
>
> 48% for, 6% against, no clear majority...

The largest single voting category is clearly the "for" vote.

And within the cast votes the result is even clearer.

>> The informal poll indicates that for the most part they are not.
>
> This is like Fox taking a poll about how people voted and then
> declaring a winner rather than actually waiting for votes to be
> counted, it's meaningless for the most part and further more the poll
> used doesn't link to actual accounts so there is nothing stopping
> people from gaming the system.

There isn't, but the OSM community aren't 4chan.

>> I am not opposed to giving the contributors a vote. They can vote with their
>> data. That is the only practical and effective way for the community to
>
> That isn't a vote, and it's confusing 2 issues in one,
> agreeing/disagreeing with a license and voting for/against a change
> over if the amount of data lost is unacceptable.

People will not vote to change over if they disagree with the change-over.

>> express their will, and the OSMF vote that we are discussing enabled it to
>> take place.
>>
>> Giving the community a ballot vote would first be voted on by the OSMF. Then
>> even if the community did vote to relicence, ****the voluntary relicencing
>> system would still have to be used because OSMF cannot relicence the project
>> as a whole like Wikimedia did****.
>
> I'm aware of that, that isn't my point, my point is I want to make an
> informed decision on how much data will be lost if we relicense, so
> far no one anywhere can know this.

Can you suggest a way we can estimate this?

ODbL is a comparable licence to BY-SA, with the main change being that 
it has actually been written to cover data. If people don't relicence 
because they are afraid not enough people will relicence then that will 
be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

> I don't know if 50% of the data for Australia would be lost, which
> would not be in my interest, so why would agree to the change over and
> be steam rolled by people in other parts of the world only caring
> about what's best in their interest?

BY-SA does not protect the freedom to use OSM data in Australia. Trying 
to continue pretending that it does doesn't serve the interests of 
Australians.

>> This means that the project might still not reach "critical mass" if people
>> didn't choose to relicence. The outcome of the ballot(s) would be rendered
>> void. Everyone's time would be wasted and the will of the community would be
>> less clear than ever before.
>
> This is exactly the point, unless we split the license change
> agreement up and have a separate community vote on the change over
> once it's know the state of relicensing a lot of us are nervous about
> agreeing to relicense.

Someone voting for something is no guarantee that they will do it.

All there is to fear is fear of fear. ;-)

- Rob.