{"id":29134,"date":"2015-04-01T09:09:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T07:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=29134"},"modified":"2015-04-01T09:09:15","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T07:09:15","slug":"frances-civil-code-compiled-github","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2015\/04\/frances-civil-code-compiled-github\/","title":{"rendered":"France's Civil Code has been compiled on Github."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Versailles,<\/p>\n

“If we consider a law to be a group of texts modified by different bodies of the government, we can treat\u00a0them likecollaboratively defined text documents… there is another group of people who, for the last 50 years, work collaboratively on ever-evovling texts: developers. They have created extremely efficient tools for working together and tracking their source code. The most popular to date is Git.” \u00a0– ReadMe text of France.Code-Civil<\/a>\u00a0by @Steeve<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This week\u00a0a unique new\u00a0repository popped up on Github, which breaks down the entire French Civil Code into a series of collaboratively worked upon texts, tracing back the date each section of the code was created, as well as the last time it was modified. The project was a quick hack by reputed French developer Steeve Morin, a former colleague of mine who is known for his not-for-profit hacks,\u00a0and was formerly the founder of LeCamping aluni Veez.io<\/a>.
\nWhile the project only took Morin an afternoon – he built a script to pull down the Civil Code, which is\u00a0publicly available online, and organize it into a format that is compliant with Github – it quickly got the attention of more than just his friends.
\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/newsycbot\/status\/583000712243601409
\nEven French politicians were\u00a0praising the initiative:
\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/axellelemaire\/status\/582926420235649024
\nReading the comments on various articles and threads, you can clearly see that the subject captured the imagination of many. Github allows developers to pull down ‘branches’ (versions) of the (Civil) code, propose modifications and then merge them back with the main source code. Admin’s can see how many lines were modified, deleted & added, as well as make sure that the changes being proposed aren’t incongruous with other changes by other bodies currently being submitted.
\nI spoke with Steeve Morin about the project, who said that, while the repository does not currently update itself when the Civil Code is updated, “I\u00a0guess now it will need to.” When asked why he thought the project was gathering so much attention, he said:<\/p>\n

I\u00a0think that despite our cynicism, we care a lot. It shows that the republic isn’t some soul crushing entity that swallows tears of children but a machine, that we are all a part of, and it shines light on the gears
\nusing the tools we all know, and that are really good at it. We [developers]\u00a0became real efficient about that whole process, applying to the law is the next logical step, I think viewing the law as source code (with its revisions, branches, merges, pull requests and so on) is the key.
\n 
\nWe have amazingly efficient tools to deal with source code, but sadly not when it comes to the law and legal manners so i guess people welcome it because they feel it’s an efficient step in the right direction
\nit’s heart warming to see that [ a sense of Civic Duty]\u00a0(in the sense of public-spiritedness), gathers people so easily.
\n 
\nimho.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Touching on a larger sentiment of dissociation with one’s\u00a0Government<\/h4>\n

While it’s certainly true that developers have built better tools for their own collaborative, iterative work than they have for their own governing bodies, I think there is a bigger issue\u00a0here.\u00a0In France as well as in many Democratic countries, active or passive abstention from local and federal elections feels like it’s on the rise \u00a0– Australia is perhaps the exception since voting is legally required.
\nOf course the youth have always felt distanced from the previous generation’s politicians who make decisions about their future; however, in this case, as technology sweeps over consumers\u00a0lives, both\u00a0at the office and at home, government’s seem increasingly archaic.
\nI can follow a hurricane\u00a0or a riot in real-time, and yet the process by which a law is proposed, voted, and put into effect seems entirely foreign to me.\u00a0Morin’s repository, or the idea of it at least, provides at least one amazing tool – the ability to follow who proposes what laws, what changes are made, and the effects of those changes (easily measured with publicly available macro-economic data). If your senator proposed a bill and claimed in would create 3 Million jobs in 2 years, let’s look at the jobs market 2 years after his proposition. How off was he? If so, should that law be reconsidered?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“If we consider a law to be a group of texts modified by different bodies of the government, we can treat\u00a0them likecollaboratively defined text documents… there is another group of people who, for the last 50 years, work collaboratively on ever-evovling texts: developers. They have created extremely efficient tools for working together and tracking their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":29143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10563],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}