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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

#41

Post by sneak »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
sneak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about marijuana. It's about the government ignoring high-signatory-count petitions. Stop with the red herring, please.

High-signatory-count petitions? 0.024% of the US signed that one, and it wasn't ignored. A response was given. Not liking the response isn't the same as it being ignored.

You assume that I don't like the response.

You also skipped over the part where the response given was bullshit boilerplate and amounted to ignoring it.

At that point, why have petitions at all? It's just handwaving.

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

#42

Post by kennywinker »

nowarninglabel wrote: post #27
nhebb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, but it's hard to disentangle the product from the thing that produced it. If Apple open sourced a product, I would fully expect to see criticism of their policies (probably around openness and and transparency, rather than labour) in any collective reaction.

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

#43

Post by rauljara »

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?

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

#44

Post by mindslight »

sneak wrote: post #34

Who cares? This is boring code. Save all the "it portends an open government!" handwaving for once the Obama admin does something _actually_ meaningful (in a positive way - starting a new war doesn't count). Seriously. Much ado about a Drupal module that is used for people to petition the government to be patronized and ignored.

I'm pretty excited at the prospect of a FUSE implementation of /dev/null-as-a-service.

But seriously, what'd you expect? The financial industry lost its place as the American poster boy, so the politicians needed something new with which to pretend they're relevant.

Besides, don't be such a buzz kill. Everyone gets laid at the Whitehouse. Everyone.

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

#45

Post by kennywinker »

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?

Well, being that I would probably agree wholeheartedly with the sassy comment, I wouldn't mind someone using the release as a platform for their political expression. But that's me.

In this case the POINT of the software was supposed to be political expression, so it doesn't seem that out of place to me.

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

#46

Post by Steko »

sneak wrote: post #41
ceejayoz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-signatory-count petitions? 0.024% of the US signed that one, and it wasn't ignored. A response was given. Not liking the response isn't the same as it being ignored.

You assume that I don't like the response. You also skipped over the part where the response given was bullshit boilerplate and amounted to ignoring it. At that point, why have petitions at all? It's just handwaving.

"You assume that I don't like the response"

"the response given was bullshit boilerplate"

Well I guess he assumed correctly.

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

#47

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by kennywinker »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
sneak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about marijuana. It's about the government ignoring high-signatory-count petitions. Stop with the red herring, please.

High-signatory-count petitions? 0.024% of the US signed that one, and it wasn't ignored. A response was given. Not liking the response isn't the same as it being ignored.

High-signatory-count means a high level of engagement, among people who were exposed to the message. number of signatures / number of users on the site, or some other measure along those lines.

And the response largely ignored the thrust of the petition. I.e. that the side effects of prohibition are worse than the effects of the substance.

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

#49

Post by ef4 »

> "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.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/expert_con... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/us/politics/new-rules-to-c... http://www.salon.com/2012/03/30/the_most_transparent_adminis... https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/us/government-documents-i...

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

#50

Post by waterside81 »

sneak wrote: post #34

Who cares? This is boring code. Save all the "it portends an open government!" handwaving for once the Obama admin does something _actually_ meaningful (in a positive way - starting a new war doesn't count). Seriously. Much ado about a Drupal module that is used for people to petition the government to be patronized and ignored.

That's a pretty cynical way of viewing things. Take a look at the big picture: the highest office in the land (world?) is doing what we here on HN do: push public code, accept feedback, leverage open source etc. It's a fantastic start towards a new paradigm of open source code in public places. This should be celebrated; a new generation of people are running things now. It can only get better.
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