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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

#21

Post by cdibona »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #13
izakage wrote: post #4

I am curious about GPL compatibility in this situation. According to [1], software developed by US federal government cannot be licensed under the GPL since it is automatically in the public domain. However, the github repo readme makes the following claim: "The project utilizes code licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and therefore is licensed under GPL v2 or later." While I applaud this effor…

This was exactly my question. How can they put limitations on public domain code?

So obviously I don't work for the white house, but I suspect that since this code depends on bits of gpl'd code to function, they made the entire project licensed similarly.

Also, it is not as simple as you think, government code isn't always pd. If written by a contractor, the contractor/contracting organization can decide to not release code/work to the public.

Finally, if this code was written by Macon's team, and not by contractors, then you could maybe make an argument that the parts of the code that came from original gpl parts would be gpl'd, but not the code written by the wh team that doesn't depend on the gpl'd parts, as the code isn't distributed to end users the way the gpl mandates sharing.

Anyhow, I'm trying to simplify a lot here, but thought I'd chime in.

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

#22

Post by intoit »

rburhum wrote: post #8
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?

I'll give you an example for CouchDB that, for the first time in my life, I saw an advantage: I created a webapp where a user can author a form (with several different kinds of fields), then it syncs with a mobile app that downloads the forms and allows for data collecting.CouchDB supports synchronizing with a server very easily and already has mobile support to. If/when the user changes the number of fields in the w…

Nice example! This clears it up for me a lot.

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

#23

Post by intoit »

jat850 wrote: post #11
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?

Sure, a couple I can think of: - when JSON is the native language of your application, certain NoSQL implementations are beneficial. The value/need for this is changing with more RDBMS introductions of JSON datatypes. - speed/ease of development/familiarity - sqlite is easy to set up and maintain for small installations/projects, so is mongo or couch or redis - fairly straightforward tradeoff - leveraging other platf…

Dynamo looks very interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.

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

#24

Post by zach »

izakage wrote: post #4

I am curious about GPL compatibility in this situation. According to [1], software developed by US federal government cannot be licensed under the GPL since it is automatically in the public domain. However, the github repo readme makes the following claim: "The project utilizes code licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and therefore is licensed under GPL v2 or later." While I applaud this effor…

The way USA.gov puts it, government works are "not subject to copyright" or restrictions thereof, which I think explains the situation better.

I am having a hard time finding a model for (or even discussion about) what happens when government works have been derived from copyrighted material. Anyone know of another example?

But I'm assuming that since there is no copyright to the additions, from a copyright point of view it's essentially equivalent to the software from which it's derived.

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

#25

Post by dllthomas »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #13
izakage wrote: post #4

I am curious about GPL compatibility in this situation. According to [1], software developed by US federal government cannot be licensed under the GPL since it is automatically in the public domain. However, the github repo readme makes the following claim: "The project utilizes code licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and therefore is licensed under GPL v2 or later." While I applaud this effor…

This was exactly my question. How can they put limitations on public domain code?

They can't, but only part of the code is public domain. If you want to use the whole pile of it, you do so under the GPL - if you pick out the changes made by the govt, then you can apply those elsewhere.

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

#26

Post by intoit »

pnathan wrote: post #19
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?

I like it because it provides a flexible material for development without committing to a schema.

I think I finally "get" it. Thanks for putting it succinctly.

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

#27

Post by nowarninglabel »

nhebb wrote: post #18
zacharycohn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's a marketing exercise. There are people who really are trying to change things from inside. It takes time, and it takes a lot of small steps. Why don't you contact them and encourage them to use individual public names?

I would believe that more if there were a single White House petition that resulted in action. Even their SOPA petition response was pretty murky.

What does whether or not a petition is responded to have to do with open-sourcing code in a White House repo? Your complaint is like if Mac open sourced a component of OS X and you went on a rant about them not moving work out of abusive factories in China due to a petition.

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

#28

Post by intoit »

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.

Yeah, I think this was a case of the developers just wanting to try the latest thing without really understanding the impact or tradeoffs.

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

#30

Post by intoit »

diminoten wrote: post #17
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?

When I don't know what my schema would look like I like using mongodb. Also, when I don't feel like dealing with the OR impedance mismatch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_impedance_mis...

Hadn't heard about OR impedance mismatch... good to know about.
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