[OSM-talk] fact-based vote?

[Richard Weait]

[I re-added attribution for John Smith that appears to have been
dropped during context trimming.]

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:
> Richard Weait wrote:
>> John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com> wrote:
[ ... ]
>>> Allow contributors to vote before the change over occurs, not just if
>>> they agree to license their data under ODBL or not...
>>
>> Interesting idea.  How should this work?  Something like?:
>>
>> ... steps leading to today
>> - users indicate ODbL acceptance or not
>> - summarize user replies: x replies, y accept.
>> - somebody processes all the results to show data effect
>> - publish those results
>> - users vote to proceed with license upgrade (or not) based on
>> published results.
>> - upgrade license (or not) based on user vote
>>
>> Or more simply.  Ask users if they are willing to proceed.  Calculate
>> and show users the results.  Then ask users if that is good enough to
>> make it "official".
>>
>> Is this what you imagine?  Is this acceptable to those reading this?
>
> That would be a great solution. It allows a decision based on facts,
> rather than what-if scenarios. At the same time, it ensures that this
> decision will be supported by the mapping community.
>
>> What are the details of the "- users vote..." step?  Let's talk more
>> about this.
>
> The procedure could be similar to the one for future license changes:
> "Active contributors" can vote, 2/3 majority is required.

Right, the contributor terms state 2/3 of active contributors and a
minimum of three weeks for the vote.  Would an additional three-week
or longer voting period, added to the process now be a problem?

Limiting a hypothetical (what should it be called? referendum?) to
just active contributors might exclude some who have just agreed to
the license upgrade.  Is this the right thing to do?  Should the
hypothetical referendum(?) be open to any person who responded to the
license upgrade question?  Or to any person with an OSM account?

If we imagine that the current process is:

1) users polled for acceptance of ODbL
2a) poll result summary compiled by LWG
2b) poll results on database calculated and displayed by LWG
3) LWG recommend (or not) upgrade to OSMF Board
4) OSMF Board accept (or not) LWG recommendation to upgrade license

What role should a hypothetical referendum take?  Should the
referendum be added as 5) so that LWG or OSMF Board might decide to
not proceed?  Or should a referendum _replace_ 3) and 4), and any poll
result should be presented to the wider community?

And for those critical of the process to date, would this address your
concerns and if not, what would address your concerns?

[For clarity, I'm just bouncing ideas around as an OSM contributor.
I'm not speaking for anybody else.]