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.
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?
You're right. It does nothing except belittle the efforts of the developers. They're trying to make their work more open which should be applauded. Just because the entire administration does not adhere to their stated philosophy, doesn't mean that we (the developer community) should be jumping on those who are at least making an attempt.
The majority of HN readers and GH users would immediately close issues / pull requests like this and be bitter about it. I don't understand why there is a double standard being applied here.
But shouldn't they? They are accessories. They are developing something that has no purpose other than to mislead people. They're writing political malware, if you will. They should be belittled, as it's completely unethical to participate in such a farce.
We should also note that making this software open (which is actually pretty badly designed, actually looking at it) is a similar farce. The objective they claim, for doing so, is somehow related to an open government. That's like claiming open-sourcing the software you use to send electronic messages back and forth is making your actual communications with said software "open." Nonsense.
It's humorous to me how many people attempt to turn anything remotely criticized into a positive by justifying it with effort. Since you escalated into name-calling so fast, I can confidently say that you don't have one hundred times more respect for anyone or anything, you are simply under the false notion that those you support actually try harder.
Com'on guys. Give these guys (the WH dev's who released the code) a break. If the tech community starts throwing mud around, we'll never ever see another project open sourced from the administration again.
Give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe, they have good intentions; clone the repo and and say, "Thank you".
Please describe how the programmers on this project can solve or mitigate the problem that some people will post petitions demanding legalization of marijuana (not necessarily a majority opinion in the US) and then be incredibly angry when this does not singlehandedly reverse the administration's policy.
Otherwise it is pretty mindless to attack the programmers for that.
Because: (a) Developers don't make policy decisions ; (b) In enterprise environments it takes a lot of effort to get an open source project approved ; (c) We should be actively encouraging more openness and transparency in government.
So I don't know what your argument is. But I assure you I do have 100x more respect for someone who does SOMETHING in the right direction as opposed to do someone who just whinges.
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.
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.
This snark doesn't apply to the Github release of the code, it is just politics. I guess one cannot publicly speak the phrase 'White House' without a hundred knees jerking into action.
Anyway, rejecting pull requests with patronizing responses is hardly uncommon on Github.
If you want to see the cause of #1 advanced, donate some money to Washington's "Yes on 502" group, http://www.newapproachwa.org
It looks like we're at or just barely over the 50% mark in favor of legalizing marijuana here in Washington, but there's a lot of moneyed interests (e.g. medical marijuana sellers) who are doing their best to kill the initiative.
Please note that I don't smoke pot. I might if it's legalized in the state, but choose not to because, among other reasons, it helps fund narco-terrorism.
2008: Rag tag, understaffed, throw them into the deep end working on rewarding projects that made small strides toward advancing the infrastructure of technology in politics and bring widespread public attention that gave hope for burgeoning markets and a space for competition. A new frontier! Technological solutions for campaigns and the American people!
2012: Best and the brightest fighting to uphold the principles, ideals, and best practices of all veins of the technology industry but they only actually let them do their jobs in order to give lip service to what got those young talented people so excited and what got them there in the first place, and they only let them do it if there's a blatantly obvious way to save face if it backfires, or in a subtly insulting way.
Its a beat down for uppity youngsters who thought they might be able to, I don't know, start a business, or run for office, or provide solutions in the political realm. Technology in politics is a victim of its own success. Politicos don't see technology as way to connect with people and do their jobs better. They see it as stealing their thunder because they don't know how to control it yet. They don't understand the rules so everyone, down to the president himself seems to be spending more time playing whack-a-potential-political-zuck than doing their own job. The only thing we can hope that that eventually they'll be spending so much time preventing technology workers in politics from doing their job that they won't have enough time to screw over voters as much.
Yes. Every policy decision of the executive should be made by an online vote, weighted toward those who have their friends sign up under many different email addresses.
People who do not use the website should be totally ignored, regardless of their votes in the actual election.
Otherwise, the President is ignoring petitions and hates Democracy.
However, the point about the brain is accurate. While this is purely my own experience, two people I've known, have developed schizophrenia in their early twenties (when the onset usually occurs) and both had smoked pot heavily in their teens. I and many more friends however, have and continue to smoke pot with no ill effects save short term memory.
However, repeated studies and surveys show that it is easier for teens to get certain drugs, including pot, than it is for them to get cigarettes or alcohol. This make sense considering someone mandated by law to check for id is selling it to them, oppose to another teen selling them unchecked, non taxed pot without doing so.
While this thread may be about the white house's code base, hear this; don't put your github account near this. You may think it could be harmless, but they could be collecting your account names. After all we are all just dangerous computer hackers!
Actually, it's about the petition software being released on GitHub. Others have made this thread about the unrelated matter of how they dislike the government's use of this software.
If you really want petitions, start a real petition. The website is for something much more informal and you shouldn't get depressed just because 4chan isn't setting policy now.
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.
Disagree. 70,000 people signing a petition wanting marijuana legalized does not obligate the government to legalize it. The response they gave contained their view on marijuana legalization and scientific research supporting some of their claims.
All in all, the release of this code was probably for two reasons. 1) The developers liked what they built for the government, and felt that people should be able to use/learn from it. 2) Releasing the code with the readme it has shines a good light on Obama and helps his reelection efforts.
1. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-and-regul...
2. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-tsa-and-us...