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Congressional Rep Makes A Pull Request On GitHub, Which Is Then Merged By US Gov't CIO

from the open-government dept

Well, here’s a possible first in open government: a Congressional Representative issuing a pull request on a government policy posted to GitHub, leading the US CIO to merge the request into the document. The White House has actually been using GitHub a bit lately. In fact, we had just noted how the White House CIO, Tony Scott, had been using Github to solicit feedback on various proposals, including the one to require all federal government websites go HTTPS only.

Another proposal concerned the Management and Oversight of Federal IT Resources. That included a draft policy document. A few weeks ago, Rep. Gerry Connolly (or, perhaps, a staffer…) made a pull request, adjusting some of the language in the draft policy:

For those of you not used to using version control systems like Github, a pull request is a way to submit a contribution to a project. Here, Rep. Connolly was basically suggesting a language change to the policy. Then, this week, as the policy was finalized, the White House merged the pull request, thereby making it a part of the final policy.

Chances are there was a lot of behind-the-scenes coordination to make this happen. I doubt that we’ll be seeing Congress critters crawling around Github, posting bills, reviewing and merging pull requests and such — but is it such a crazy idea? Yes, right now it’s mostly useful for folks with some technical background, but given how well such processes have worked for more open development of code, why can’t it work for many other things up to and including regulations?

Yes, this particular example may be something of a stunt, but it’s still a milestone, and one worth paying attention to. It shows how we could move much more towards truly open government if we really had the will to go there.

Filed Under: gerry connolly, git, github, open government, pull request, tony scott

Qualcomm Uses DMCA To Shut Down Its Own GitHub Repository (Plus A Bunch Of Others)

Another day, another story of ridiculously errant DMCA takedown notices. The latest involves Qualcomm hiring Cyveillance to issue a DMCA notice to Github, demanding the site take down 116 repositories for allegedly violating Qualcomm’s copyright. Of course, among those repositories are… Qualcomm’s own repository. Because, apparently, like many other companies out there that do DMCA takedown notices, Cyveillance doesn’t much care about collateral damage, and issues overly broad takedown notices because it can, and because there’s simply no penalty for doing so. The takedown also impacted CyanogenMod developers and Sony’s own Xperia dev Github repository. Because if you’re going to create collateral damage, why not try to hit everyone?

The impetus behind the takedown request is a WiFi config file ? literally a text file ? which is taken straight from a Sony firmware release. In this takedown Qualcomm also took down PRIMA mirror which is open source code for Atheros wireless chipsets that they release on the CodeAurora gitweb site.

The article at Ausdroid also points out that Qualcomm has been trying to create “better relations with the open-source community for sometime.” I would imagine one way to do that would be to not pull down their GitHub repositories with bogus DMCA claims. But, of course, Qualcomm has long been known as a patent and copyright bully, so apparently old habits die hard.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, github, open source, respositories, take downs
Companies: cyveillance, github, qualcomm

GitHub Bug Opened: Government Occasionally Shuts Down; Conflicting Error Messages

from the expected-result:-government-should-be-working dept

Via Brian Walsh, we learn of a rather amusing bug report that’s been opened on GitHub by Dave Rupert: BUG: Government occasionally shuts down. Rupert’s bug report is both dead on, and quite hilarious:

I noticed a bug over the past week or so and it seems reproducible:

1. Go to U.S. Government. 2. U.S. Government is shut down.

Expected results: Government should be working.

I’m unable to debug or propose a fix since there’s not an open, transparent stack trace. Conflicting error messages are being thrown as well.

Hope you can resolve this soon. It would seem that the U.S. Government would value 100% uptime in order to be a reliable and trustworthy source for the rest of the world.

Thanks! Love this project and would like to continue using it.

Tragically, no one has been assigned to fix it.

Filed Under: bugs, github, government shutdown

Digital Native Government Agency Embraces The Power Of Open Source

from the open-source-for-open-government dept

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a young federal agency (founded in July 2011), and as such has a history of getting it when it comes to the digital world. They launched by taking online suggestions, they run an active blog, and now they’ve revealed their internal software policy and its dedication to open source, both as a user and a contributor (emphasis in the original):

We agree, and the first section of our source code policy is unequivocal: We use open-source software, and we do so because it helps us fulfill our mission.

Open-source software works because it enables people from around the world to share their contributions with each other. The CFPB has benefited tremendously from other people’s efforts, so it’s only right that we give back to the community by sharing our work with others.

This brings us to the second part of our policy: When we build our own software or contract with a third party to build it for us, we will share the code with the public at no charge. Exceptions will be made when source code exposes sensitive details that would put the Bureau at risk for security breaches; but we believe that, in general, hiding source code does not make the software safer.

We’re sharing our code for a few reasons:

* First, it is the right thing to do: the Bureau will use public dollars to create the source code, so the public should have access to that creation. * Second, it gives the public a window into how a government agency conducts its business. Our job is to protect consumers and to regulate financial institutions, and every citizen deserves to know exactly how we perform those missions. * Third, code sharing makes our products better. By letting the development community propose modifications , our software will become more stable, more secure, and more powerful with less time and expense from our team. Sharing our code positions us to maintain a technological pace that would otherwise be impossible for a government agency.

The CFPB is serious about building great technology. This policy will not necessarily make that an easy job, but it will make the goal achievable.

While governments around the world have been moving to embrace open source for a long time, adoption has been pretty slow in the U.S., though it is steadily growing as more federal agencies revise their guidelines and regulations, and some states pass laws requiring the consideration of open source options. But as a new agency that actively pursues the opportunities presented by technology, the CFPB is ahead of the curve. TechCrunch’s Scott Merrill got additional details, like the fact that they are trying to lead by example:

I asked Willey what kind of advocacy — if any — the CFPB was doing (or planning to do) for open source software within the government. He shared that they’re using GitHub Enterprise internally, and have fielded a number of questions from other agencies about how they procured that and set it up. “It’s hard for us to have these conversations with other agencies without implicitly advocating an open source philosophy,” Willey told me. “So instead of trying to sell open source to other agencies on principle, we’re finding that it’s a lot easier to prove the value of open source software by showing our colleagues the great results it has gotten us.”

I was curious whether the CFPB’s policy is the natural result of more digital natives taking government jobs. According to Willey, it was “simply the byproduct of building a government organization from scratch in the information age: we are able to craft our technology philosophy with a modern perspective.”

It’s good to see people in government placing an emphasis on staying at the forefront of technology, especially in terms of open source. The entire philosophy of open source is perfectly matched to the ideals of a transparent, accountable government that serves and belongs to its citizens, and hopefully the CFPB will lead more agencies in that direction.

Filed Under: cfpb, github, government, open source, software