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The People’s Code

whitehouse.gov

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Re: The People’s Code

#41

Post by gohrt »

thewopr wrote: post #18
wang_li wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that, assuming you're a government employee, any work you create that would normally be covered by copyright as part of your job is public domain. There's no license legally possible.

Yeah, absolutely. We make that argument often. In fact, the software we open-source is technically supposed to be released as public domain (as in, no license applied) and often is if people are doing things right. But that doesn't mean it has to be hosted and released online. Many agencies work under the "not going to release anything until we get a FOIA request" model. Just because it is public domain doesn't mean…

Any employee can take home a copy and publish it, no?

Re: The People’s Code

#42

Post by solidangle »

JimLaheyMD wrote: post #29

How about we start with the source code for electronic voting machines?

And how would that help? How do you know that the code they published is the same as the code installed on those machines? You need voting machines that leave a paper trail (which the voter can verify while voting), that way the machines can provide quick results while the final results can be counted by hand.

Re: The People’s Code

#43

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

As a person outside the government, I'm concerned about some potential problems with this initiative:

For one, Pull Requests: If a government agency gets a PR on some code, I'm concerned there may be pressure not to accept it: auditing requirements that are so high that nobody wants to review PRs (not that audits are bad!), or policies that otherwise don't encourage PRs, meaning that improvements don't get back to the government.

Secondly, us winding up with a repeat of some of the problems that other previously proprietary projects (namely, OpenSolaris) encountered: The code that was opensourced being dependant on code that, for whatever reason, couldn't be opensourced, hampering forks, and further development outside of the organization that developed the software in the first place.

Even if issues like this, or issues that I haven't even thought of, occur, this is a huge step forward.

Re: The People’s Code

#46

Post by heygiraffe »

fludlight wrote: post #45

This is cool, but can we call it something else? The People's * is a prefix used by totalitarian governments.

> The People's * is a prefix used by totalitarian governments.

Indeed. And so are words like "homeland".

The last ~2 decades have seen a widespread change in ideas about the relationship between the U.S. federal govt. and the people. As a result, practices that were once restricted to highly repressive states are now merely a bit controversial in the U.S. And then we also have these ways of naming things that you & I noted.

So I wonder: could it be that thinking more like a totalitarian somehow naturally leads one to talk more like a totalitarian?

Re: The People’s Code

#47

Post by JimLaheyMD »

solidangle wrote: post #42
JimLaheyMD wrote: post #29

How about we start with the source code for electronic voting machines?

And how would that help? How do you know that the code they published is the same as the code installed on those machines? You need voting machines that leave a paper trail (which the voter can verify while voting), that way the machines can provide quick results while the final results can be counted by hand.

Fair enough, but they won't even release fake source code right now.

Re: The People’s Code

#49

Post by thewopr »

galdosdi wrote: post #32
squidfood wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well (as another Federal coder), one problem is the unfunded mandate issue. If this comes with resources to maintain public repos and updates, sure. Otherwise, if someone emails me I share the latest snapshot but only as my time and duties permit.

How about just using github, like many federal agencies do? ( https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal ) I realize that setting up an automatic integration between your existing source control system and github might be nontrivial (eg if you are using an unpopular source control system for which no easy conversion to git) so this won't work for everyone without funding (and it would be nice if some were ma…

I generally agree. I've seen a few challenges to this perspective. 1) Some agencies do not think using 3rd party services like github is allowed. 2) Different groups make the initial code release pretty time consuming (as, in part, it should be) as, through time, the history may have accumulated secrets/keys/other sensitive material. So very thorough reviews are sometimes required. 3) Some agencies allow the use of github (and the like), but make the process of getting code up there extremely challenging. For example, some groups require all changes to code to go through the same internal review process as traditional communication, like a scientific publication or press release (internal review, multiple levels of management, etc).

Of course, the last one is the worst. A lot of groups are getting their act together when it comes to starting open-source, but it is met with a lot of skepticism.

Re: The People’s Code

#50

Post by Retra »

heygiraffe wrote: post #46
fludlight wrote: post #45

This is cool, but can we call it something else? The People's * is a prefix used by totalitarian governments.

> The People's * is a prefix used by totalitarian governments. Indeed. And so are words like "homeland". The last ~2 decades have seen a widespread change in ideas about the relationship between the U.S. federal govt. and the people. As a result, practices that were once restricted to highly repressive states are now merely a bit controversial in the U.S. And then we also have these ways of naming things that you & I…

I keep watching older TV shows that aired when I was in the military and they keep using the term "War on Terror", which frankly, is something I'd never directly heard in the military (only from politicians) and it's surprising to me that anyone would say such a thing without reactively slapping themselves for gleefully eating up such confusion-inducing propaganda.

I think some people just like talking like that.

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