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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

#51

Post by zacharycohn »

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.

I don't see how petitions are at all relevant.

What is relevant is programs like this: http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows

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

#52

Post by snowwrestler »

Just want to point out that this is not the first code contributed to open source from the WhiteHouse.gov project. Several of the Drupal modules developed for the site were made available to the community on Drupal.org not long after the new site launched. Some examples (may not be all of them):

http://drupal.org/project/govdelivery http://drupal.org/project/akamai http://drupal.org/project/context_http_headers http://drupal.org/project/node_embed

Actually it strikes me as a little strange that this code is on Github since Drupal.org has an entire section devoted to Drupal "distributions", which is what this appears to be. I mean, is the White House tech office moving to a full open source development model? Are they planning to appoint volunteer maintainers and accept pull requests? I sort of doubt it.

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

#53

Post by purephase »

fruchtose wrote: post #38
daenz wrote: post #12

And, in the spirit of the project, they'll reject all pull requests with a patronizing response about the way things are.[1][2] 1. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-and-regul... 2. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-tsa-and-us...

Not to worry, someone has created an issue for this bug: https://github.com/WhiteHouse/petition/issues/2

That's just stupid. As if the developers involved, who are likely proud of their work and the go-ahead to release it to the community, have anything to do with the petition outcomes.

People need to think things through sometimes.

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

#54

Post by daenz »

purephase wrote: post #53
fruchtose wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to worry, someone has created an issue for this bug: https://github.com/WhiteHouse/petition/issues/2

That's just stupid. As if the developers involved, who are likely proud of their work and the go-ahead to release it to the community, have anything to do with the petition outcomes. People need to think things through sometimes.

It raises awareness of the issue. Why should any self-respecting developer want to contribute to a code base that does nothing but facilitate the government ignoring peoples' grievances, while at the same time making them feel like they are participating?

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

#55

Post by csense »

kyebosh wrote: post #15

Certainly an interesting microcosm of a type of democracy... I wonder how feasible this kind of model would be for actual policy making.

The more influential the channel gets, the harder people will try to game the system to push their own agenda. I.e. fake or hacked registrations, buying signatures, or trying to promote comments favorable to your point of view while burying opposing ones.

Right now the influence of this app is zero, so we don't have these problems. It's just a marketing dog-and-pony show where they can say "Look we're actually responding to people's questions" but the answers are extremely vague nothings and you have no idea if the President / Cabinet / anyone with real authority even reads the petitions that have 6- or 7-digit signature counts, let alone acting on them.

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

#57

Post by acdha »

daenz wrote: post #12

And, in the spirit of the project, they'll reject all pull requests with a patronizing response about the way things are.[1][2] 1. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-and-regul... 2. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-tsa-and-us...

You know, I rather doubt the developers are the ones who set policy. More likely, they're the ones fighting a thankless internal campaign to get permission to release anything and would like something more to show for it than a bunch of predictable snark.

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

#58

Post by jlgreco »

purephase wrote: post #53
fruchtose wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to worry, someone has created an issue for this bug: https://github.com/WhiteHouse/petition/issues/2

That's just stupid. As if the developers involved, who are likely proud of their work and the go-ahead to release it to the community, have anything to do with the petition outcomes. People need to think things through sometimes.

It is not like that pull request really creates any undue burden on those developers. Seems like a perfectly legitimate, no matter how ineffective, form of peaceful protest.

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

#59

Post by vm »

purephase wrote: post #53
fruchtose wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to worry, someone has created an issue for this bug: https://github.com/WhiteHouse/petition/issues/2

That's just stupid. As if the developers involved, who are likely proud of their work and the go-ahead to release it to the community, have anything to do with the petition outcomes. People need to think things through sometimes.

Seemed like a joke or an effort to raise awareness. I took as devs poking fun at the White House and found it hilarious :)

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

#60

Post by unconed »

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?

Seeing that I would be a web developer designing real products for the real world, yes, I would appreciate being exposed to the grander political and social context of my work, because nothing is created in a vacuum, and anything involving a group of people in public becomes political sooner than later anyway.
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