Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On 13 December 2010 22:46, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: It's unclear to me whether a 2/3 majority of active contributors have to vote yes, or merely 2/3 of some unspecified quorum of active contributors. It is extremely unlikely that any English court would think so. The phrase a 2/3 majority vote of active contributors would be understood in its natural way, namely that 2/3 (or more) of all active contributors must vote in favour of the change. If there was to be a quorum then the terms would say so. However changing active contributors to all active contributors ought to dispel any shadow of a doubt on that point and does not read unnaturally, so I'd suggest it as a change. NB: we've been asked to suggest changes to the CT's if we think they are unclear. I cannot remember whether you caught that. -- Francis Davey ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Francis Davey fjm...@... writes: On 13 December 2010 22:46, Anthony o...@... wrote: It's unclear to me whether a 2/3 majority of active contributors have to vote yes, or merely 2/3 of some unspecified quorum of active contributors. It is extremely unlikely that any English court would think so. The phrase a 2/3 majority vote of active contributors would be understood in its natural way, namely that 2/3 (or more) of all active contributors must vote in favour of the change. If there was to be a quorum then the terms would say so. I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. It is nowadays a good percentage even in the election of the parliament. In year 2007 in Finland the turnout seemed to be 67.9%. And because all active contributors for sure would not vote for Yes it would mean in practice that OSM license could never be changed. Myself I have been thinking that the 2/3 majority means the share of those who vote. Obviously it would be better to write it clearly into the CTs how we want it to be interpreted and not to ask it afterwards from any English court. -Jukka Rahkonen- ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, On 12/14/10 10:28, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. The turnout percentage in the kind of poll mandated by the CT will be 100%: An 'active contributor' is defined as [someone who] has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile and responds within 3 weeks. This means that anyone who does not at least reply to the email is not an active contributor. Now of course, when asked by email to respond either yes or no, people could also respond bugger off but that would simply count as a no. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On 14 December 2010 09:28, Jukka Rahkonen jukka.rahko...@latuviitta.fi wrote: I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. It is nowadays a good percentage even in the election of the parliament. In year 2007 in Finland the turnout seemed to be 67.9%. And because all active contributors for sure would not vote for Yes it would mean in practice that OSM license could never be changed. Myself I have been thinking that the 2/3 majority means the share of those who vote. Obviously it would be better to write it clearly into the CTs how we want it to be interpreted and not to ask it afterwards from any English court. Well, 2/3 of those who vote and 2/3 of all active contributors are very different in terms of how much support a change needs to get. If a change is really popular then it should be possible to engage 2/3 of those who are actively contributing enough to get them to vote in favour. Parliamentary votes aren't really comparable. Anyway, this is a governance issue rather than a legal one. As drafted the CT's will require 2/3 of all active contributors, not merely those who vote. If there's a desire for a different effect, then some change in drafting would be needed. If not, then it is probably worth nailing the point as I have indicated. -- Francis Davey ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Francis, On 12/14/10 10:38, Francis Davey wrote: Anyway, this is a governance issue rather than a legal one. As drafted the CT's will require 2/3 of all active contributors, not merely those who vote. As written in another message, I believe that in this case an active contributor is one who votes (or, at least, replies to the email - the CTs don't say whether the email used to verify active-contributor status is the vote email at the same time, but it might be). Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Frederik Ramm frede...@... writes: Hi, On 12/14/10 10:28, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. The turnout percentage in the kind of poll mandated by the CT will be 100%: An 'active contributor' is defined as [someone who] has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile and responds within 3 weeks. Right, I apologize. I was remembering that we have about 15000 active contributors but actually we have just that amount of potentially active contributors. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 5:07 AM, Jukka Rahkonen jukka.rahko...@latuviitta.fi wrote: Frederik Ramm frede...@... writes: On 12/14/10 10:28, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. The turnout percentage in the kind of poll mandated by the CT will be 100%: An 'active contributor' is defined as [someone who] has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile and responds within 3 weeks. Right, I apologize. I was remembering that we have about 15000 active contributors but actually we have just that amount of potentially active contributors. Easy mistake to make when an agreement defines a term in a way which completely contradicts the plain language meaning of the term. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Also, the idea that the vote could be conducted via email is rather humorous. Can't wait to see the dispute over the hanging chads in that scenario. I'm not sure why its humerous. There seems (to me) to be nothing wrong in principle in holding a vote by email or indeed by any other electronic means. Maybe it worked for usenet, but that was back when having an email address was a sign of intelligence. Besides the obvious problem of parsing the various responses to determine intent, there's also the issue that email is completely insecure and the question of how to handle contributors who have multiple accounts under different email addresses. There are of course problems, but then so are there with paper ballots as we all know. I wouldn't suggest a paper ballot either. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On 14 December 2010 15:21, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: I wouldn't suggest a paper ballot either. What would you suggest? A website with some form of authentication given to contributors when they sign up to the CT's? -- Francis Davey ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Francis Davey fjm...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 December 2010 15:21, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: I wouldn't suggest a paper ballot either. What would you suggest? I'd suggest that people go to a URL, log in, check a box which says I haven't already voted under another account, and click Yes or No. Their IP address would be recorded so that the committee overseeing the vote could manually check for and rule on invalid votes due to ballot stuffing. Something like http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:BoardVote ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Anthony o...@inbox.org wrote: I'd suggest that people go to a URL, log in, check a box which says I haven't already voted under another account, and click Yes or No. Their IP address would be recorded so that the committee overseeing the vote could manually check for and rule on invalid votes due to ballot stuffing. Something like http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:BoardVote I should add that I think it's a terrible idea in the first place. Especially with the threshold for eligibility being so low (essentially one edit every 4 months). ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
