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Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
31–40 of 78 posts
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
the readme has a german section right above the english one.
Ah, right you are! Didn't notice it thanks to the anchor link. Doesn't change the commit history's melange of English and German.
All Germans I have ever met have had excellent English. Certainly good enough to read short English commits with only the occasional dictionary reference required.
The Eurobarometer report from 2006 says 56% of Germans speak English.
But I suspect that rather underestimates the case here. There is a huge difference between someone checking a box on a form that says they can speak English and being able to parse short messages in English.
And given only fairly educated, tech-savvy Germans are likely to participate in this, I think the negative effect from English commits is straight up zero, or at worst incredibly low.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-sp...
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't US law not public-domain anyway? Or at least on a state by state basis? I remember a copyright issue concerning someone reprinting some of Oregon's laws.
That doesn't make any sense. How can laws not be in the public domain? Can any lawyers around comment?
IANAL but you are right from the basic premise:
“If a Law Isn't Public, It Isn't a Law”—Justice Stephen Breyer
But I believe the distinction here is that just because the law is public, that doesn't mean that you can call up anyone who has a copy of the law (including the organization who wrote the law) and say "Hey, give me a copy of the law."
So orgs like Malamud's get copies of the law and provide them freely to all:
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/19/liberating-americas-secret....
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#34Awesome stuff. I couldn't find anywhere though: is this an 'official' project, or is it just someone who processed the XML forms into markdown? Also, this: "All German citizens can easily find an up-to-date version of their laws online." And it's only 130 megs of markdown when zipped (246 unzipped)! A mere 4,737,628 lines[1]! Surely you have time to read it, right? And therefore be a well-informed, law-abiding citize…
This is not an official project, "just" someone who registered the organization "Bundesregierung" ("Federal Government") at github and processed the official XMLs into markdown.
Nitpick: no "Bundesregierung" (Government) but "Bundestag" (House of representatives).
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#35Gesetze sind Prosa, sie enthalten keine maschinenlesbare Semantik. (Laws are prose, they contain no machine readable semantics)
And there was me hoping they had fixed that! Ahwell, one step at a time :)
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#36Awesome stuff. I couldn't find anywhere though: is this an 'official' project, or is it just someone who processed the XML forms into markdown? Also, this: "All German citizens can easily find an up-to-date version of their laws online." And it's only 130 megs of markdown when zipped (246 unzipped)! A mere 4,737,628 lines[1]! Surely you have time to read it, right? And therefore be a well-informed, law-abiding citize…
My guess is that about 129 megs of those are tax laws.
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#37Start with the IP-related laws. They seem to have some of the most aggressive ones in the world, which could explain why the Pirate Party there is also the fastest growing branch.
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#38There was a great discussion on HN previously about this topic which also explains why a straight git implementation isn't viable for US law; I'm not sure if doing the same with Germany's laws would be similarly difficult: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968653
As discussed in the linked HN discussion, VCS/diffs are not compatible with the established workflow for discussing and changing laws.
However, as far as I understand, this repository is not primarily intended as a tool for supporting lawmakers but serves two purposes:
a) It allows the public to track all changes made to a law.
b) it allows NGOs and other parties to suggest changes to a law by forking the repo and sending a pull request. [1]
In summary: no revolutionary shift but a nice tool.
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#39There was a great discussion on HN previously about this topic which also explains why a straight git implementation isn't viable for US law; I'm not sure if doing the same with Germany's laws would be similarly difficult: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968653
Merges definitely seem like they'd be difficult if there are two concurrent changes to a statute, but that's always going to be the case (and is the case with or without source control).
I think a lot of the initial focus/discussion here is about machine-readable interpretation and management of laws themselves, and hence the challenges of turning gray into black and white - but I think that having a historical, digital record of changes in laws -- especially if clear attributions to individuals or groups can be made -- could be just as significant, if not more so.
Imagine having a full historical record of legal changes across and within a nation, and the data measurements to back up the effects of those changes. The results could be linked back to the individuals/groups involved in drafting the laws - data-based legal review.
Re: Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked
#40Gesetze sind Prosa, sie enthalten keine maschinenlesbare Semantik. (Laws are prose, they contain no machine readable semantics) And there was me hoping they had fixed that ! Ahwell, one step at a time :)
Rewriting law to be machine-readable as in "instructions a machine can understand" would be quite a task I suppose. Interesting project though. Would that even be possible? How well does the law map on the black and white logic of a computer?