Good arguments and reasoning Dermot, (no irony) Now see how these match with the history of the CT approval process, and you might even change opinion!
And to Russ, calling others a troll will transform you into one once! This discussion is of high quality, high level argument based and both sides are to be respected from their perspective. There is no consensus to be expected, but if OSM will not prevail the end you all will (maybe) understand why ! After all, the overwhelming majority that clicked without even reading or considering reading the CT will abandon OSM as quick as a click, for another toy of preference. And those who actually read and object against the CT (besides a possible majority that is in favor for equally qualified reasons) should be considered with more respect, as both groups form the core of this project. To get back to the start of this thread, becoming a member of the OSMF will reinforce the basis of this project. Regardless of the fact that our legal basis will result in CT/ODBL or PD. So again, I want to call everyone reading this to spent a few beers in "our favorite" hobby (if so!) and assure the future of OSM. Regards, Gert Gremmen -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: Dermot McNally [mailto:derm...@gmail.com] Verzonden: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 2:13 PM Aan: Russ Nelson CC: Nathan Edgars II; talk@openstreetmap.org Onderwerp: Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF ! On 14 June 2011 05:18, Russ Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com> wrote: > Nathan was being gracious. You ARE trolling. Stop it. I like to assume good faith on the lists. I have never for a moment doubted the sincerity of your position on the licence change, and I demand the same courtesy from you. It's acceptable for people to draw different conclusions from the same data. In a democracy, a majority decides which way a decision should fall. > Very likely many non-Muslims voted against the ban. They were NOT > treated differently after the vote. Stop arguing that accepting the > license means anything more than accepting the license, Dermot. It > doesn't. In particular, I accepted the license because I know that if > I do not, then my (rather significant) contributions would be deleted, > and I would be banned from further contributions. I can and have > accepted the license without approving of it. That too is a reason to accept. Most countries and organisations avoid the kind of micro-democracy that would have avoided the situation we have today in OSM where some people (a minority) complain that they are being asked to "vote" (or "pronounce", "decide", "choose" if you don't want to call it a vote) on the wrong question and that they would prefer to have been asked a different question. Such a micro-democracy would never have managed to agree on a question to ask, and while this might be a useful outcome for those who favour the status quo, that seems to me a lot like one group asserting its will over another not by constituting a majority, but by constituting a loud enough minority (UN Security Council springs to mind here). So instead of a micro-democracy, we have ended up with a central group of people producing the proposal on which ultimately all mappers needed to take a decision. As will be clear, I tend to agree with the thrust of their reasoning and I find that the people involved are honest and have the good of the project at heart. But is it not still unfair that specifically that group got to come up with the proposal? Not at all. And again, I'd like to come back to how democratic governments tend to work. If you look at the role of the OSMF in advancing the licence change initiative, one option is to consider that they were acting in the manner of a government. This might grate if you take the view that you never voted for them. But ultimately, it isn't just governments that get to propose laws. Minority groups in parliaments, right down to single independent members, also get to do so. And in the case of the Bavarian smoking ban, a law change even came from an ad-hoc group of citizens. So the right to propose legislation (or, in this case, a licence change) is not some mysterious one. There is no reason any grouping within the project cannot form to promote a different change - in fact, any group that wishes to do so will find it much easier to do so once the initial change to CT is made because of the 66% majority. "But", I (continuously) hear you point out, "the OSMF is uniquely well-placed to force through its will because it controls the servers.". This is, of course, true. I can counter with the usual retort that it is everyone's option to fork and that this is the defense against an evil Foundation. You can counter that OSMF will still prevail as it enjoys recognition as the one true fork. And we all go away frowning. Thing is, even an evil foundation would have to consider the sustainability of a post-CT data set. On the one hand, OSMF has the advantage that it could, using the servers and domains it controls, move to ODbL under CT with, say 20% of today's data - technically they are not even subject to any democratic decision of mappers. To return briefly to the issue of legislation sponsored by a government, the cabinet in planning the legislation needs to keep it sufficiently reasonable that it will pass a vote by a majority of the house. Opposition-sponsored bills are harder. They require the same majority and you know that government party can defeat it on a whim. Such a bill needs to be so strong it its merit that even your political rivals will go for it. The Bavarian referendum on the smoking ban is probably closest to our licence change, and even here, a defined majority of the turnout is sufficient to carry the law. In our "vote" the OSMF had both the theoretical latitude to ignore democracy and operate without a majority, but also the practical constraint that anything less than an overwhelming mandate would screw up the map beyond redemption. This much stronger imperative informed the entire process of licence selection. The process was not a secret and nobody's consent was taken for granted. The eventual proposal is one that failed to please many, for all kinds of reasons. Russ, I've already publicly stated that you did the decent thing by agreeing to the change despite your many difficulties with the process. As far as I'm concerned, barring those mappers who have contributed data incompatible with the new terms, there is nothing in the post-change OSM that moves OSM further away from allowing mappers to advance difference licence agendas they may have. The removal of single-mapper vetos and the pain of lost data that goes with it is a bitter pill that we're much better off swallowing now than later. So we return, finally, to "what is a majority?". There are lots of reasons for saying yes or no. I'm certainly not arguing that every "yes" is intended as a grateful endorsement of everything the OSMF has ever done. But what it should mean, or the mapper wasn't paying attention, is "yes, I will let my data be used in these new ways and under these new terms. I think the world will be a better place, possibly just a little bit, if my data stays in the dataset reachable under openstreetmap.org.". So far, a vast majority of those voting (representing also a majority of map data) have taken that view. Any personal misgivings aside, democracy says that this is what should happen. And as in any democratic process, anybody who wishes, at a later stage, to yell "I told you so" gets to do that too. > Please stop trying to put words in my mouth. That's an ugly thing to do. Not my intention - everybody is free to explain what they meant by "yes". My point is, if enough people say "yes", it's fair to take them at their word and to proceed with the licence change. Dermot -- -------------------------------------- Igaühel on siin oma laul ja ma oma ei leiagi üles _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk