[OSM-legal-talk] Noise vs unanswered questions

[Maarten Deen]

Rob Myers wrote:
> On 09/02/2010 12:55 PM, TimSC wrote:
>>
>> The question I was asking was primarily about HOW we reach that
>> consensus, which you did not address. If you had specifically answered
>> my questions, it would have helped.
> 
> My understanding (such as it is) of how OSM works comes from having 
> watched it online over the years. The public record shows that there 
> have been several years of conference events, mailing list discussions, 
> working group and board meetings and other events dedicated to deciding 
> on the licence issue.
> 
> This has resulted in consensus. The actual discussions, debates and 
> votes at events across the different fora have led over time to a 
> compromise that upsets just about everyone equally (apart from those 
> jurisdictions with valid concerns about losing major contributions, who 
> are quite rightly more upset).

The current situation as I see it is that a group of contributors (possibly 
supported by the OSMF?) wants to move to ODbL and that a group of contributors 
does not want that move. Perhaps there are also people wanting to move to yet 
another license, and maybe people are indifferent.
How big either of these groups are is unknown to me. There was some discussion 
on how the group wanting to move should be measured, by number of people, by 
number of edits/contributions possibly only measured over a certain period, but 
AFAIK no consensus has been reached there.

If that is consensus to you... Let's put it this way: if that is consensus to 
the people wanting the move and the people in charge of the license that governs 
OSM, then I guess the license move is imminent and undebatable.

Regards,
Maarten