Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The People’s Code

whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 64 posts

Re: The People’s Code

#31

Post by x1798DE »

wang_li wrote: post #16
thewopr wrote: post #14

Full disclosure, I'm in a federal department that has been pushing for more open source for a while. This is a great move by the White House. While there are a lot of groups that are trying to push for more openness and release of software, it can often be challenging. A lot of federal groups have been taught over the years to be very risk averse, and open software is viewed by them to be risk. Probably one of the mo…

I'm pretty sure that, assuming you're a government employee, any work you create that would normally be covered by copyright as part of your job is public domain. There's no license legally possible.

> There's no license legally possible.

Apparently things are a bit more complicated than this, since works created by government employees are in the public domain in the US, but foreign copyrights are still held by the government. Unless the software is released with a FOSS license where applicable, I don't think public domain government code is compatible with other FOSS licenses (which are generally worldwide).

Even if it weren't the case that the US government held full copyrights abroad, it's still something of a problem because some jurisdictions do not have a concept of public domain - this is why the concept CC-0 licensing comes into play (it's public domain with a permissive license fallback).

See 18F's open source policy: https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy...

Re: The People’s Code

#32

Post by galdosdi »

squidfood wrote: post #24
thewopr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, absolutely. We make that argument often. In fact, the software we open-source is technically supposed to be released as public domain (as in, no license applied) and often is if people are doing things right. But that doesn't mean it has to be hosted and released online. Many agencies work under the "not going to release anything until we get a FOIA request" model. Just because it is public domain doesn't mean…

Well (as another Federal coder), one problem is the unfunded mandate issue. If this comes with resources to maintain public repos and updates, sure. Otherwise, if someone emails me I share the latest snapshot but only as my time and duties permit.

How about just using github, like many federal agencies do? (https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal)

I realize that setting up an automatic integration between your existing source control system and github might be nontrivial (eg if you are using an unpopular source control system for which no easy conversion to git) so this won't work for everyone without funding (and it would be nice if some were made available for that)

But if you already use git (or something like SVN or hg which can easily interoperate with git) or don't currently use any SCM (!) then just publishing to github is a nobrainer.

Am I missing anything?

Re: The People’s Code

#33

Post by jamespitbully »

galdosdi wrote: post #32
squidfood wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well (as another Federal coder), one problem is the unfunded mandate issue. If this comes with resources to maintain public repos and updates, sure. Otherwise, if someone emails me I share the latest snapshot but only as my time and duties permit.

How about just using github, like many federal agencies do? ( https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal ) I realize that setting up an automatic integration between your existing source control system and github might be nontrivial (eg if you are using an unpopular source control system for which no easy conversion to git) so this won't work for everyone without funding (and it would be nice if some were ma…

>don't currently use any SCM

It's even easier when you do. For instance, we have RhodeCode (https://rhodecode.com) as an "umbrella SCM" to control permissions for Git, Hg and Subversion repositories. We then mirror public ones to GitHub/Bitbucket.

Re: The People’s Code

#34

Post by alexose »

Kluny wrote: post #26
ideonexus wrote: post #11

As a developer, I have been so impressed with the Obama Administrations efforts to put everything online. There is a .gov for anything now and I've been watching organization after organization digitize our commons and put them online. This "Federal Source Code" policy is a great extension of the project-open-data initiative released a few years back: https://github.com/project-open-data I found the db-to-api project…

I just checked out vets.gov to have a snoop around, and it's mostly quite impressive. But I found an SSL configuration error on this page ( https://www.ebenefits.va.gov/ebenefits/vonapp ) that will probably prevent vets from being able to use the site. Anyone know where to submit a ticket about that? I got yet another SSL error from the contact form on that page.

Hi! Vets.gov dev here. We're not in charge of VONAPP, but we work with them. I'll see if I can't track down a good contact for this.

Re: The People’s Code

#35

Post by vanderZwan »

Kalium wrote: post #28
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want my email address? I'll just send FOIAs all day long through Muckrock if I know what I should be asking for (and pushing the results up to Github and the Internet Archive).

I would be willing to help code FOIAAAS.

Wouldn't this be something that Archive.org might be interested in organising?

Re: The People’s Code

#36

Post by toomuchtodo »

vanderZwan wrote: post #35
Kalium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be willing to help code FOIAAAS.

Wouldn't this be something that Archive.org might be interested in organising?

FOIAs made through Muckrock.com already go into the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/MuckRock

Re: The People’s Code

#37

Post by Kluny »

alexose wrote: post #34
Kluny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked out vets.gov to have a snoop around, and it's mostly quite impressive. But I found an SSL configuration error on this page ( https://www.ebenefits.va.gov/ebenefits/vonapp ) that will probably prevent vets from being able to use the site. Anyone know where to submit a ticket about that? I got yet another SSL error from the contact form on that page.

Hi! Vets.gov dev here. We're not in charge of VONAPP, but we work with them. I'll see if I can't track down a good contact for this.

Thank you!

Re: The People’s Code

#38

Post by vanderZwan »

Roboprog wrote: post #21

I ran into this last year: the feds set up their own "Bootstrap" type project: https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/28/web-design-standards/ https://github.com/18F/web-design-standards

> 2. Be accessible out of the box. We created tools that seamlessly meet the standards of 508 accessibility, from colors to code.

Very nice; this is especially important for government sites. It's even printer-friendly out of the box!

Re: The People’s Code

#39

Post by fapjacks »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
thewopr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, absolutely. We make that argument often. In fact, the software we open-source is technically supposed to be released as public domain (as in, no license applied) and often is if people are doing things right. But that doesn't mean it has to be hosted and released online. Many agencies work under the "not going to release anything until we get a FOIA request" model. Just because it is public domain doesn't mean…

Want my email address? I'll just send FOIAs all day long through Muckrock if I know what I should be asking for (and pushing the results up to Github and the Internet Archive).

I already FOIA the shit out of government. I am 100% willing to help FOIA the right people for the right projects.

Re: The People’s Code

#40

Post by VikingCoder »

wang_li wrote: post #16
thewopr wrote: post #14

Full disclosure, I'm in a federal department that has been pushing for more open source for a while. This is a great move by the White House. While there are a lot of groups that are trying to push for more openness and release of software, it can often be challenging. A lot of federal groups have been taught over the years to be very risk averse, and open software is viewed by them to be risk. Probably one of the mo…

I'm pretty sure that, assuming you're a government employee, any work you create that would normally be covered by copyright as part of your job is public domain. There's no license legally possible.

I'm pretty sure people working in defense would disagree.
Post reply on HN