How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
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How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
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Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#2> My edit wasn’t substantive. This sort of “technical correction,” as lawyers would call it, didn’t need to be passed by the Council and signed by the Mayor.
Okay, so they didn't "change the law." It's a cool story but not a fan of clickbait titles either.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#3From the Why It Matters section:
The Council is able to publish the law better and faster than ever before. With the District’s previous codification contractor, updates to the DC Code were published three times a year, and there could be a five-to-seven month delay in seeing the latest laws. But the Open Law Library has shortened the publication process to about a week after a law is enacted.
It also means we’re all getting to see more of the actual law that governs us—not the law as it was months ago.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#4I’m personally not OK with a system that enables a single individual (the "lawyer" in the article) to declare modification to a law as insubstantial, then modify the law.
Some review process needs to be there, and frankly, even a typo correction IMO needs to be run by the Mayor because she/he signed one thing into law and this process changes what they signed. We cannot ever assume we know the intent of the Chief Executive, even when “obviously” in error.
OTOH, a diff system for law is awesome. California uses a similar system but it is cumbersome to do things like “show me how this section evolved over time”.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#5I’m personally not OK with a system that enables a single individual (the "lawyer" in the article) to declare modification to a law as insubstantial, then modify the law. Some review process needs to be there, and frankly, even a typo correction IMO needs to be run by the Mayor because she/he signed one thing into law and this process changes what they signed. We cannot ever assume we know the intent of the Chief Exe…
Judging from screenshots, the person who accepted the change was on the DC City Council.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#6> My edit wasn’t substantive. This sort of “technical correction,” as lawyers would call it, didn’t need to be passed by the Council and signed by the Mayor. Okay, so they didn't "change the law." It's a cool story but not a fan of clickbait titles either.
It would probably go over better if the phrase about changing the law were in quotations marks to indicate it is kind of being tongue in cheek. It's not entirely inaccurate, more like a smidgen of double entendre.
I mean, I'm sympathetic to your complaint. It implies something more substantive than it really means. But I also appreciate word play. (shrug)
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#7I’m personally not OK with a system that enables a single individual (the "lawyer" in the article) to declare modification to a law as insubstantial, then modify the law. Some review process needs to be there, and frankly, even a typo correction IMO needs to be run by the Mayor because she/he signed one thing into law and this process changes what they signed. We cannot ever assume we know the intent of the Chief Exe…
No law was changed. The title is straight up clickbait.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#8I’m personally not OK with a system that enables a single individual (the "lawyer" in the article) to declare modification to a law as insubstantial, then modify the law. Some review process needs to be there, and frankly, even a typo correction IMO needs to be run by the Mayor because she/he signed one thing into law and this process changes what they signed. We cannot ever assume we know the intent of the Chief Exe…
There was a review performed via pull request. In this case,a small typo was corrected - no further action required.
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#9In stark contrast to Georgia, which has actively made access to its laws harder through copyright enforcement.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/appeals-court-tells-ge...
Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request
#10On one side it makes sense to have a public repository like git used for this, but having a private company being responsible for this it's bit strange.
The fact that a pull request was accepted was now that strange because it could have been done by the council representative.
For this kind of use case it would make more sense to me some sort of block chain, not controlled by a single company.
"This isn’t a copy of the DC law. It is an authoritative source. It is where the DC Council stores the digital versions of enacted laws, and this source feeds directly into the Council’s DC Code website at https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/."