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The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

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Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#111

Post by snowwrestler »

sprice wrote: post #87
mikey_p wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And specifically it includes a drupal-org.make file which is a manifest for the Drupal.org packaging system which bundles up this profile, all of it's dependencies, and Drupal core into a single download. Perhaps they are planning to put it there, or just decided to mirror it on Github for now. Also FWIW, the petition namespace on d.o is already occupied, perhaps that is blocking the release on d.o?

A drupal-org.make file, like any .make file that the Drupal tool Drush uses, is independent of the Drupal.org packaging system. There's a lot of pressure from within the Drupal community to host all Drupal contrib modules, themes, and distributions on drupal.org but I don't see anything wrong with a distribution being hosted on GitHub. It certainly brings more visibility to the project from developers outside of the…

It does, which might have been part of the reason they did it this way. Github is increasingly "the place to be" for open source projects, so the White House probably wants to get involved there too. (I don't mean this cynically BTW--I believe they honestly are trying to move the government more toward open source.)

And a lot of Drupal developers do use Github for their own work. On the other hand when they go to check out distribution options for a new project, I bet they start on Drupal.org. It's just so convenient, and like you say, there's a strong norm within the community to put everything there. Even the few "commercial" distributions can be found there. I assume this work will show up there at some point as well.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#112

Post by benvanderbeek »

thinkingisfun wrote: post #105
ef4 wrote: post #49

> "President Obama is committed to creating the most open and participatory government in our nation’s history" I'll believe that when his administration stops being one of the most secretive and most aggressive prosecutors of whistleblowers in recent history. Sources: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/09/obamas_unprecedented_war_on_... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/obamas-whistlebl... http://tpmmuckraker.ta…

I think they mean participation in that you can choose the left or the right lane of the conveyor belt to the butcher house; it's not about addressing actual stuff . You just have to keep up with the newspeak and it all makes perfect sense.

"you can choose the left or the right lane of the conveyor belt to the butcher house."

I am going to use this phrase, thanks.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#113

Post by jmikola »

dkhenry wrote: post #7
intoit wrote: post #5

Moving from MongoDB to MySQL. I never understood why people felt they need MongoDB/NoSQL for their projects. Does anyone have an example where it was really necessary/advantageous?

According to the README they say preformance improvements with Mongo. The downside was having to port all the new features over to it. Personally I have used it to speed up development. It allows very fast iterations early on and integrates much more nicely with most languages then a SQL based solution. Also its a lot faster the MySQL.

10gen sponsors development of a Drupal module, EntityFieldQuery[1], which aims to improve support for non-SQL databases. Although I'm unfamiliar with Drupal project layouts, I didn't find a reference to the module in the GitHub project, so I don't believe they were using it. That said, there are still challenges to making MongoDB play nicely with Drupal 7, but 10gen is aiming for better integration in version 8 (through the same sponsorship).

1. http://drupal.org/project/efq_views

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#114

Post by saraid216 »

ef4 wrote: post #49

> "President Obama is committed to creating the most open and participatory government in our nation’s history" I'll believe that when his administration stops being one of the most secretive and most aggressive prosecutors of whistleblowers in recent history. Sources: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/09/obamas_unprecedented_war_on_... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/obamas-whistlebl... http://tpmmuckraker.ta…

> I'll believe that when his administration stops being one of the most secretive and most aggressive prosecutors of whistleblowers in recent history.

Is "recent history" the last four years? Because you're right. Out of 1 administration, they are one of the most secretive and most aggressive. How about that.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#115

Post by TallGuyShort »

rauljara wrote: post #43
kennywinker wrote: post #37

Finally I can sass the whitehouse using github issues! https://github.com/WhiteHouse/petition/issues/2

Let's say you were a web developer hired to design some part of Apple's website, and by some miracle Apple let you open source your code. You, as a web developer, have no special way to contact or pass information on to Tim Cook, or any other top Apple executive. Would you appreciate sassy comments about Foxconn in your repository's pull requests?

Considering how insulting it is that the README parades this project as evidence of how radically transparent the administration is, I think it ought to be highly appreciated.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#117

Post by thinkingisfun »

benvanderbeek wrote: post #112
thinkingisfun wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean participation in that you can choose the left or the right lane of the conveyor belt to the butcher house; it's not about addressing actual stuff . You just have to keep up with the newspeak and it all makes perfect sense.

"you can choose the left or the right lane of the conveyor belt to the butcher house." I am going to use this phrase, thanks.

Feel free. I wish it wasn't true, you know.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#118

Post by mikey_p »

sprice wrote: post #87
mikey_p wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And specifically it includes a drupal-org.make file which is a manifest for the Drupal.org packaging system which bundles up this profile, all of it's dependencies, and Drupal core into a single download. Perhaps they are planning to put it there, or just decided to mirror it on Github for now. Also FWIW, the petition namespace on d.o is already occupied, perhaps that is blocking the release on d.o?

A drupal-org.make file, like any .make file that the Drupal tool Drush uses, is independent of the Drupal.org packaging system. There's a lot of pressure from within the Drupal community to host all Drupal contrib modules, themes, and distributions on drupal.org but I don't see anything wrong with a distribution being hosted on GitHub. It certainly brings more visibility to the project from developers outside of the…

Except there's no specific reason to name it drupal-org.make except that the d.o packaging system requires that specific name.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#119

Post by kennywinker »

dkhenry wrote: post #10

It would be really cool if they let the devs use their public names and GitHub accounts to commit. As of right now it is WH-NewMedia, and there is no history. Makes me think this is a marketing excersize rather then a new leaf in federal software development.

Pull request merging so far have all been done by one Peter Welsch (https://github.com/welschp). Seems like this is happening. Perhaps these are white house specific alts, but still pretty public.

Re: The White House just open sourced their first Github repo

#120

Post by jMerliN »

purephase wrote: post #110
ceejayoz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It raises awareness of the issue. OK, I'll bite. Who is now aware of the issue who wasn't previously?

You're right. It does nothing except belittle the efforts of the developers. They're trying to make their work more open which should be applauded. Just because the entire administration does not adhere to their stated philosophy, doesn't mean that we (the developer community) should be jumping on those who are at least making an attempt. The majority of HN readers and GH users would immediately close issues / pull r…

But shouldn't they? They are accessories. They are developing something that has no purpose other than to mislead people. They're writing political malware, if you will. They should be belittled, as it's completely unethical to participate in such a farce.

We should also note that making this software open (which is actually pretty badly designed, actually looking at it) is a similar farce. The objective they claim, for doing so, is somehow related to an open government. That's like claiming open-sourcing the software you use to send electronic messages back and forth is making your actual communications with said software "open." Nonsense.

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