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How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

arstechnica.com

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Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#51

Post by baroffoos »

prepend wrote: post #31

This is neat as long as DC sticks to a policy of open source laws and free access. Github has always done this, but I fear that 50 years from now we could be in a situation like access to case law where you have to pay a third party to read.

Yeah it makes me slightly uncomfortable to put the law in the hands of a private company. Github is allowed to block me for whatever reason they want, does that now mean I get locked out of this?

Would much rather see this on a self hosted GitLab but this is a good start for sure.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#52

Post by seba_dos1 »

dgreisen wrote: post #43
seba_dos1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paper -> Git. I don't think anyone has any problem with using Git as a medium. The only bookstore chain where you can find the trusted, canonical copy of the book -> GitHub. The government should host the canonical copy itself. Then, and only then, it can be replicated to any other commercial service willing to host a mirror. Be it GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, sr.ht or anything else. Git architecture is so well suited…

Even if the canonical copy were hosted on the Council's website, you would still be trusting the hosting provider, the DNS system, and the certificate authority - all private entities. What is needed is cryptographic authentication so that the git servers can be completely untrusted. This is also necessary to comply with the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (adopted by DC here: https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/counc…

Although it's important matter, it's not only about the trust. I wonder what, for instance, GitLab could have done in order to get this kind of advertisement coming right from the Council.

Regardless, I would expect hosting, authoritative DNS and certificate to all be handled by the government itself. It's not a startup that's getting free vouchers for AWS to burn, public infrastructure should be either handled internally, or via some public auction on government's terms.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#53

Post by Iv »

A few years ago, while the French parliament was discussing the modifications in law to allow gay marriage, many people were scrutinizing amendments and proposed amendment, and a developer presented all the MPs work in a git repository. It really felt like the future of democracy:

https://github.com/steeve/france.code-civil/commit/dfd5918f9...

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#54

Post by PhasmaFelis »

School-Cotton wrote: post #42
casual_slacker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are cases in history where records offices were held in rebellion for political purposes. A blockchain would change means of control of records from violence to compute power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Archive_War

Whoever has the ability to do violence will always have ultimate control. They could just force everybody to start accepting a different blockchain.

Relevant xkcd. https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#55

Post by PhasmaFelis »

casual_slacker wrote: post #33
Rotten194 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you use a blockchain? There's already a central authority - the DC city government. They should just host their own git instance.

There are cases in history where records offices were held in rebellion for political purposes. A blockchain would change means of control of records from violence to compute power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Archive_War

For these purposes, the blockchain is just a fancy way to maintain accessible backups. It doesn't give anyone but the government "control". The law is always what the government in power says it is, pretty much by definition.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#56

Post by dgreisen »

baroffoos wrote: post #48
dgreisen wrote: post #35

Hi all, I'm a co-founder of Open Law Library, the non-profit that built the platform DC uses to codify and publish their laws. We were so excited when we saw a member of the public make a PR. I'm happy to answer any questions.

This is really awesome and I hope to see something like this come to my country. One thing I was wondering is how you would deal with more tricky issues/pull requests. Obviously we probably won't see people writing whole new laws in the pull requests editor but what if it was something like a sentience was written in an unclear way and someone opened an issue asking for it to be clarified or maybe they made a PR rewr…

We are in talks with several international governments. We would be delighted to help your country!

The system does not in any way change the legislative process, so you cannot use a pull request to make any substantive change to the law. That would include rewording, changing punctuation, fixing numbering, etc. If such a pull request were made, it would be immediately closed. As throughout history, the only way to make a substantive change to the law is to petition your representative to sponsor a bill and then convince the legislature to pass it.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#57

Post by dgreisen »

eletious wrote: post #49
dgreisen wrote: post #35

Hi all, I'm a co-founder of Open Law Library, the non-profit that built the platform DC uses to codify and publish their laws. We were so excited when we saw a member of the public make a PR. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Kind of out there, but what prevents modification of the law from bad actors? Git history plays a part but is it possible for someone to edit a change and play all the subsequent changes on top of it, with the hope that nobody notices the sha change?

We have internal systems that allow us to audit/authenticate the repository. We will be deploying a cryptographic authentication framework based on TUF in Q1 2019 that will make it possible for _anybody_ to audit/authenticate the repository.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#58

Post by peanutz454 »

bytematic wrote: post #29
gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

I would love to see a constitution drafted for a fictional country.

Our better still, a fictional Constitution for all humans on Earth.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#59

Post by baroffoos »

dgreisen wrote: post #56
baroffoos wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really awesome and I hope to see something like this come to my country. One thing I was wondering is how you would deal with more tricky issues/pull requests. Obviously we probably won't see people writing whole new laws in the pull requests editor but what if it was something like a sentience was written in an unclear way and someone opened an issue asking for it to be clarified or maybe they made a PR rewr…

We are in talks with several international governments. We would be delighted to help your country! The system does not in any way change the legislative process, so you cannot use a pull request to make any substantive change to the law. That would include rewording, changing punctuation, fixing numbering, etc. If such a pull request were made, it would be immediately closed. As throughout history, the only way to m…

Ah fair enough. I guess this limits the PR system to just fixing typos. Still it seems almost all of the value is in providing really easy and up to date info to everyone. Awesome work.

Re: How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request

#60

Post by gammateam »

gamblor956 wrote: post #36
gammateam wrote: post #25

I've been wanting this for a long time, I wanted to take it further though: I want draft laws, I want to see all representatives as contributors and be able to see their contributions and changes to draft laws. the House should have a master branch that submits pull requests to another repository, the other chamber having one too The Governor/President gets to approve PR's from that jurisdiction It would become SUPER…

They have what you describe, and moreover such a thing has existed in paper form since th this country was formed. Real time access to laws as they are drafted is a Really Bad Idea. Good ideas need time to incubate. The system you want would lead to the sound byte version of legislating.

using git doesnt make it a realtime system

Only a better system

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