Arizona Court Rules on Public Records Metadata
Lobbyists beware: judge rules metadata is public record, By Jon Stokes, ars technica (October 29, 2009).
"The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the metadata attached to public records is itself a public record. Given the frequency with which metadata outs lobbyists' and corporations' efforts to mask their own contributions to public debates, this is a good thing."Continue reading
Free and open internet
Here's a simple, straightforward and thoughtful piece about what an open and neutral internet architecture means and why it's important. --that is all.
Tools of Change: BookServer
This is a presentation that is definitely worth seeing!
- Web of Books, Peter Brantley, Presentation at Tools of Change Frankfurt introducing the BookServer architecture. Brief description of history, motivations, and technical outline. "Creating a new architecture using common, open standards that permits people to ?nd, buy, acquire, and read books from any source, on any device, using many different ebook applications."
FEC makes data available in multiple formts
Disclosure Data Catalog, Federal Election Commission
"Each of the files listed here can be downloaded in either csv or xml formats. Each also has a metadata page that describes the information included and the structure of the file itself. There is a pdf version of each file if you need to print the information. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds for each of the files so you're notified whenever new data is available or a change is made."Also see the Commission's Disclosure Data Blog where the FEC will post information about the files and its future plans. And: they say that "you can get help with any questions about the data we're providing here." Continue reading
Can Proprietary Formats make Government More Open?
Three interesting comments!
- Adobe is Bad for Open Government, by Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs
- Adobe is Bad for Open Government, comment, by kathy and ernie brandon, Open House Project mailing list, (10/28/2009). "Once private ownership is established in something like this we aren't getting it out again, not without another draining fight. Most people start out saying "I don't really have a problem with this" until I take them down the road this leads - private ownership means 'trade secrets', 'trade secrets' is the opposite of transparency."
- Adobe is Bad for Open Government, comment, by Josh Tauberer, Open House Project mailing list, (10/28/2009). "Government has a responsibility to issue print-ready documents in many cases, so PDFs are an important part of an open government. I would rather have PDFs over nothing electronic, over electronic image files, and over other formats suitable for printing --- PDF is an open standard (albeit proprietary). "I wouldn't want to get rid of PDFs. Docs need to either be published in a second format, or --- more interesting --- we could get Adobe to revise the PDF format so that it can encode the document in structured form as well. That means govt publishes a single file that makes everyone happy."