[A2k] Re: Free Software/Services at NY State Senate

[Seth Johnson]

This literally went down the Friday before the contretemps broke out
in the New York State legislature (a "coup" of sorts that's leaving
the question of party control in question, for those not in the US).
The only question is to what extent the fabulous enlightened
sponsorship that produced this will continue under whatever develops
out of that situation.  We're very fortunate that this came out,
because it sets the right stage and even if the promise here is pulled
back in some way, the right discussion has now arisen in the right
venue (for the first time in a legislature), discussion of this key
area of concern, on the right terms, that we've needed to occur
somewhere, somehow, since the 80's.

To a certain very great extent, I believe this is really "the cat out
of the bag" for this area of concern: free software and "content" in
government.  As I repeat ad nauseum, the nature of information will do
the rest and it's only repression that can stop it (as has been the
story since the 80's).  All we needed was for it to be registered in
an official, public legislative venue.  Now we can fight for the rest
with near absolute certainty of success, just by standing on
principle.


Seth


Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> > http://open.nysenate.gov/
>
> Free and Open-Source Software & Services
>
> Welcome to the Open NYSenate
>
> To pursue its commitment to transparency and openness the New York
> State Senate (http://nysenate.gov/) is undertaking a cutting-edge
> program to not only release data, but help empower citizens and give
> back to the community. Under this program the New York Senate will,
> for the first time ever, give developers and other users direct access
> to its data through APIs and release its original software to the
> public. By placing the data and technological developments generated
> by the Senate in the public domain, the New York Senate hopes to
> invigorate, empower and engage citizens in policy creation and
> dialogue.
>
> What You'll Find Here
>
>     * Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for building your own
> applications and services
>     * Embeddable widgets for easy sharing on your site, profile or
> blog
>     * Original Software such as Drupal Modules and Java libraries
>     * Data sets in a variety of formats, along with Plain Language and
> graphical explanations of important documents and definitions
>     * The legal rules and licenses adopted by the Senate guaranteeing
> that the information and tools here can be used freely
>
> Please take the data and tools offered here, mash them up, improve
> them and re-distribute them to help the Senate educate and engage the
> citizens of New York.
>
> APIs
>
> The New York Senate has created a developer API to help organizations
> and individuals compile the Senate data they want the way they want.
> The basic goal was to parse the flat file records from the Legislative
> Retrieval System (LRS) (http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menuf.cgi)
> into an open format. This data can then be queried via a simple
> RESTful API to produce output in any number of desired formats or
> standards - XML (RSS, ATOM, custom schemas), JSON, CSV, HTML
> (widgets).
>
>     * Browse the Open Leg Service (http://open.nysenate.gov/openleg)
>     * View the Developer API documentation
> (http://open.nysenate.gov/openleg/doc)
>
> Embeddable Widgets
>
> Widgets are a fun and easy way to reach people with important
> information. Please view our widget library and help yourself to the
> tools that will enhance the experience of your users, and ours, all
> over the web. If you have a widget of your own using our API or data,
> please contact us and we may feature it here.
> *coming soon*
>
> Original Software
>
> As a user of Open-Source software the New York Senate wants to help
> give back to the community that has given it so much - including this
> website. To meet its needs the Senate is constantly devleoping new
> code and fixing existing bugs. Not only does the Senate recognize that
> it has a responsibility to give back to the Open Source community, but
> public developments, made with public money should be public.
>
> You can find all the NY Senate source code published on Github at
> http://github.com/nysenatecio
>
> Data Sets
>
> The New York Senate's Open Data page
> (http://www.nysenate.gov/open-data) is the official repository of all
> government data. There you can browse through data produced by and
> considered by the Senate in their original forms as well as various
> other file types created for your convenience; including but not
> limited to: Excel spreadsheets, .csv, text files and PDFs. To
> supplement the source data it is making available, the Senate has also
> created the Plain Language Initiative designed to help explain complex
> data sets and legal terms in plain language.
>
>     * Browse Open Data (http://www.nysenate.gov/open-data)
>     * Browse Plain Language Initiative
> (http://www.nymtasolutions.org/2009/)
>
> Open-Source Software & Software Licenses
>
> In order to make the Senate's information and software as public as
> possible, it is has adopted unique system using two types of licenses
> - GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) as
> well as the BSD License
> (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php). This system is
> meant to ensure the most public license is used in each specific case
> such that:
>
> (i) Any Software released containing components with preexisting GPL
> copyrights must be released pursuant to a GPL v3 copyright
> restriction.
>
> (ii) Any Software created independently by the Senate without any
> preexisting licensing restrictions on any of its components shall be
> released under dual licensing and take one of two forms: (a) a BSD
> license, or (b) a GPL v3 license.  The ultimate user of such Software
> shall choose which form of licensing makes the most sense for his or
> her project.
>
> (iii) Regarding Software containing preexisting copyright restrictions
> other than GPL, the CIO shall make the determination how he or she
> wishes to release such Software.

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