Here are the facts: Stack Exchange elections results are calculated using OpenSTV. OpenSTV is, as of December 4th 2010, open source, but not free. Stack Exchange sites provide the binaries of OpenSTV for users with reputation above a certain amount (150 according to Geoff). Geoff suggest that because SOIS has donated a significant amount of money to OpenSTV that it is allowed to do this.
And here are my questions:
I presume the reputation required to download the binaries is equal to the amount needed to vote in the elections. Am I right?
This Rebecca person, (whoever she might be, huh) now tells me that I'm mistaken and that I should check up my eyes again. It's 150 reputation points across all sites.And then Jeff comes around and tells me that it's the same amount that's needed to vote in the elections. Y'all are confusing me, oy!What can we (legally) do with the binaries? I presume redistribution is out of the question, but suppose (highly unlikely) I want to run my own elections, can I do so with the binaries here, or is it only for running simulations of the SE elections?
The downloads page for OpenSTV lists a Linux version which is actually the Python source of the application; this is not provided on the elections page. Is this an oversight, or because Linux has small usage rate, or because of licensing restrictions?
And finally, can you please fix the casing for 'Windows' and 'Mac'? It's driving me nuts!!!