On Wed, 2010-07-14 at 20:56, Richard Weait wrote: > On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Tobias Knerr <o...@tobias-knerr.de> wrote: >> Richard Weait wrote: [ ... ] >>> 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". [ ... ] >> 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. [ ... ] >> 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?
The license issues were already being discussed back when I joined OpenStreetMap (which was more than two years ago). So I don't think that this additional voting period will make much of a difference. Loss of data is the primary concern about the license change for quite a lot of mappers. Dealing with their worries is worth the delay. > 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? I've wondered myself, and I think that either would be an acceptable choice. An argument for allowing anyone who responded to the license upgrade question to vote could be that the referendum, among other advantages, will make people less likely to (ab)use the license change question as a vote. If some people cannot vote in the referendum, they might still be inclined to do this, which we probably want to avoid. > 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? I would use it as a step 5) - if we expect to suffer really bad data losses or encounter some other severe issue, then 3) and 4) can prevent a time-consuming, confusing and potentially divisive (esp. in the case of massive regional differences) referendum. However, if people prefer removing the possibility for LWG/Board intervention at that stage, that would also be fine with me. > And for those critical of the process to date, would this address > your concerns and if not, what would address your concerns? This would eliminate my only major issue with the process, and I'm certain that it would do the same for a lot of mappers I've communicated with in the past. Tobias Knerr _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
