Government Shutdown

[haleyvandyck]

Due to Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government, we are unable to maintain this site and keep it up to date. Issues and pull requests submitted through GitHub will not be processed until the government re-opens.

Many Regrets. See you on the other side.

Ref #159

[waldoj]

:-1:

[benbalter]

[StevenBlack]

Unwatching.

Sometimes simple things distinguish between passion and paycheck cashing.

Considering hundreds of thousands smart people freely give brain-cycles to open-source and open-data projects, this statement by @haleyvandyck speaks volumes.

Looking at activity, the whole White House open source initiative appears to be window dressing anyway.

What @haleyvandyck is effectively saying is: we're using this pretense to transition from doing nothing to officially doing nothing.

[waldoj]

@StevenBlack demands that pull requests be merged promptly by furloughed workers! They must risk their jobs by doing so in flagrant violations of federal regulations! These pull requests cannot wait! It's a data-mergency!

[rgbkrk]

@StevenBlack - Federal regulations restrict them from being able to work while furloughed. In particular --

The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from ... accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342.

[konklone]

Time to get gittip.com/whitehouse set up so we can keep this moving!

(@StevenBlack - they're legally forbidden from doing any work here. It doesn't have anything to do with their personal feelings.)

[rgbkrk]

@StevenBlack - It's worth noting that they can hack on open source all day, it just can't be in an official capacity. That includes this repository.

[mapmeld]

@StevenBlack this is how the shutdown and the longer-term sequester work: a decision is made as to which employees continue to work and later get backpay, and which employees whose offices are closed and unpaid except for emergencies. Presidential Innovation Fellows (very passionate about Open Gov!) are affected by the sequester and have been dealing with this for a while. It's no more a failure of passion than when a grocery store cashier goes home after the store closes.

[atheken]

@StevenBlack I think the point here is that many agencies are actually posting similar notices today. It's a political move to show how many services are being disrupted due to the impasse in congress, I don't think it has anything to do with personal passions.

[theory]

:-1:

[olyerickson]

I think there is a deeper issue here: with government employees as the (apparently only) committers, development is at risk when disturbances such as shutdowns come along. There ought to be a way to include as committers a few trusted contributors from outside the government.

[atheken]

@olyerickson - Maybe, though, this is really not much different than any other Open Source project. Github has made it much easier to fork than anywhere else, and has some info about project activity, so it's somewhat up to the consumer of these projects to decide whether they trust the fork, or if the main project is recent enough.

There's always the question of whether the "canonical" version is up-to-date, but again, what are the guidelines for "trusted committers."

[jedsundwall]

@StevenBlack do you think most institutionally-run repos on GitHub are managed by gracious unpaid volunteers? I'm certain that most aren't.

+1 to @haleyvandyck for eschewing the mealy-mouthed "due to the lapse in federal government funding" language so many other agencies are using. Way to tell it like it is.

[waldoj]

I think there is a deeper issue here: with government employees as the (apparently only) committers, development is at risk when disturbances such as shutdowns come along.

That, unfortunately, is necessary. Contributions to this project can and do make policy changes, and those policy changes frequently need to be reviewed by White House attorneys. Allowing changes to a policy document by folks not in a legal position to make those changes is courting trouble, at best.

That said, I agree with you regarding federal repositories for software, as opposed to text, albeit based only on a minute's consideration.

[parkr]

I'm really :frowning: to see this, but understand the circumstances. Maybe folks involved in Project Open Data should go storm the Capitol and demand the return of the POD team?

[StevenBlack]

@jedsundwall reading the readme.md the irony of all this is palpable. The founding myth behind this repo is transparently vainglorious now.

[NoahKunin]

+100 to @haleyvandyck [btw, I can keep posting since the @cfpb is not appropriated/funded by Congress]

For those interested in the law governing this sort of thing, check out the Antideficiency Act.

You have to interpret a current employee's work as being "voluntary" during a shutdown. Even though that voluntary action is accepting "gratuitous" work (ie a pull request) the act of approving it is a prohibited voluntary act - not that anyone would seek to gain remuneration from the Government for that work (the review and approval of the pull request), but they certainly could try and force a "financial obligation over and above those authorized by Congress."

Additional information on the difference between "voluntary" and "gratuitous" can be found on on the MIL-OSS FAQ, sixth question down. Or you could check out this Comptroller General decision from 1982 which provides very helpful clarification.

As to the issue of whether or not non-governmental staff should have direct commit access or be repo maintainers - this has to remain an unqualified "no". See @waldoj above + there is significant law statingt that determining policy or strategy is an inherently governmental function. Personally, I have to fill out fairly long forms proving and documenting that I don't give inherently governmental functions to 3rd parties.

Whether or not you think that's a good thing is outside of the scope of this issue - the US is not a direct democracy or a holocracy.

Lastly, does this mean we get to "close" this issue when the government re-opens? :money_with_wings:

[waldoj]

@StevenBlack, what, specifically, is it that you're proposing should be done? What's your solution? Or are you just trolling?

[DruidSmith]

A sad and ironic state of affairs when "open government" has to close. :-1:

[mhogeweg]

:+1: to :-1:. hope things resolve soon and we can continue with this awesome project.

[chadwhitacre]

@konklone You can pledge here:

https://www.gittip.com/on/twitter/whitehouse/

We won't actually move money unless they claim the account. :-)

[waldoj]

And so now it can be known that @StevenBlack was just trolling. Lesson learned. :-/

[StevenBlack]

Right, @waldoj -- so who's calling the kettle here, buddy?

I'm sorry I failed to respond to your breezy, loaded, naïve questions.

[danxoneil]

Breezy!

[philipashlock]

We're open! let's close this ticket :)

[mhogeweg]

:8ball:

[DruidSmith]

+1 to @philipashlock :)

[haleyvandyck]

At long last, government is finally re-opened! :us: :fireworks: :us:

It continues to be a fascinating journey working at the intersection of policy, law, and technology. Every day seems to present new opportunities for precedents, new challenges that haven’t been confronted, and new questions that have never been asked before. Managing open source projects and a government shutdown definitely being one of them.

Many thanks to those who helped explain the legal situation behind my absence. It is correct that, by law, working on behalf of the Federal government during the shutdown could have resulted in the termination of my job, or even jail time. On a personal level, I would like to quickly reiterate my passion for both this project and the work that myself and so many others have the privilege of doing for our country every day. It’s an honor to work on the challenging issues of integrating new technology into longstanding policy and legal paradigms, and in some cases, even being able to update those policies in the process.

In one small example of trying new methods to improve outdated processes, we made a decision to put not just technical resources, but actual policy resources into Project Open Data. To @noahkunin and @waldoj points, that raises the need to ensure that government officials are managing the project. To help clarify the roles and responsibilities and the difference between technical and policy repos, we created /governance which goes into further depth on the governance processes.

But the beauty of running this project in an open source fashion is that if you disagree strongly with the approach, we would love nothing more than for you to help us fix it. Submit a pull request. Open an issue and include suggestions. Fork the project. Or better yet, why not try out public service and help improve our government from the inside? Come on in, the waters fine.

Very pleased to close this issue, and I appreciate everyone who contributes to this project. Thanks all.

[theory]

:+1: @haleyvandyck