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

from the open-government dept

Thu, Jun 11th 2015 9:39am — Mike Masnick

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.

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

14 Comments

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JohnG (profile), 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:01am

Politicians won't want to open things like this up to public visibility because then we'd all see how the beef is made. Right now it is hidden in the slaughterhouse.
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jameshogg (profile), 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:13am

Isn't a contribution a push request, not a pull?
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PRMan, 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:23am

Now THIS is transparency
We need every law to be made like this. Instead they are trying to make all of them through international agreements that no member of the populace actually supports.
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Casper, 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:24am

Re:
It's a bit confusing, but the representative is requesting that the CIO pulls in the new changes.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:38am

Can you imagine Ted Stevens trying to understand Git? If he weren't already dead, his head would explode.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2015 @ 10:54am

Would be FAKE "transparency"!
Actually it is and will be "a lot of behind-the-scenes coordination".

Worse than useless! At best, a PR tactic to allay public fears and deflect anger while the deals are STILL made in secret. Be a good start on The Ministry Of Truth, promising good times just ahead, then a memory hole to hide what really happened by editing the repository!

So, NO THANKS. BAD IDEA.

It's a lot like Google's PR stunt after Snowden of going to court so can publish numbers of how many NSA requests, but which the public has no way to verify. You're better off ignorant than falsely informed!
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2015 @ 11:06am

So how long till Congress critters start to argue on GitHub?
I can see it now, every politician will start a fork with their own agendas and still nothing will be accomplished.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2015 @ 11:09am

Re: So how long till Congress critters start to argue on GitHub?
...So, remind me how that's diferent from now...?
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dfed (profile), 11 Jun 2015 @ 12:15pm

Wondering if we'll see Politician's commits end up here:

http://www.commitlogsfromlastnight.com/

"Fuck , here's a fix."
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ronabop (profile), 11 Jun 2015 @ 12:30pm

Push vs. Pull
It's not a push, it's a pull, but that's a common mis-conception, usually found when people are coming from centralized version management systems.

In Git, push actions are done to put changes into a local, decentralized, system, and pull requests are used to move from one decentralized system to another.

White House has repository A.
Connolly forks/clones A to make repository B.
Connolly makes changes, and pushes those changes into repository B.
Connolly then issues a pull request to the white house, asking them to pull changes from repository B to put into repository A.
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Bruce E (profile), 11 Jun 2015 @ 1:31pm

Key signatures
I'd hope that all congressional staffers have personal signing keys that get signed by a key for the congressperson, and all changes be signed.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2015 @ 2:54pm

Re: Now THIS is transparency
My state has a rudimentary lookup for legislation. You can lookup original drafts and finalized approved drafts. You can also lookup those bills that don't make it out of the legislature, at least until adjournment.

The way Github does it is much better. Maybe the states AND Congress can learn a few things.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2015 @ 11:18am

Re:
If you don't own the repo, you request the owner to pull your changes. Hence pull req... (I think)

On a sidenote, are you a subversion user?
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Chris S, 12 Jun 2015 @ 6:57pm

Re: Push vs. Pull
Go to github and check out any repo. Commits pushed back to the repo that need approval for merge are pull requests.

Now instead of trying to critique things you don't know about, go forth, find a project, and submit some commits! ;)
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