Law is Code, and We're Here to Open Source It
*Excerpt
Anyone can show how to save the world. We tell how to receive unsolicited love letters while doing it.
Description
“You are a true pillar of democracy.”
“I love you.”
Who wouldn’t want to get emails like these? We’ll show how it’s done. First half, presentation. Second half, questions and discussion.
Presentation Outline
- A New Model: Open Sourcing our Laws
- Not an entirely new idea
- Kohel Haver, first person to ‘open source’ the ORS.
- There is plenty out there, ready for the doing
- Examples
- […]
- Legal Issues to Consider
- Federal legal documents: public domain
- State and local governmental legal documents: quasi public domain
- Not an entirely new idea
- This helps so many people in different groups
- Increasing access to the legal system, e.g. for
- The person who got into a car accident
- People who want to link to, discuss, and debate our laws
- Law students, lawyers, and law librarians
- Students and non-wealthy lawyers are exploited by the old, existing research system.
- “It’s awful; it’s terrible.”
- Increasing access to the legal system, e.g. for
- Enabled by Open Source Tools
- HTML Parser — Nokogiri
- Web Crawling — wget, curl
- Specialized web browser — Lynx, specially hacked
- Text File Manipulation Tools — find, grep, awk
- Text editing — emacs, vi
- Web Server Stack — Linux, Apache, Ruby, Rails
- Communication — Wordpress
- Unique Benefits to this Type of Project
- Many, e.g.:
- Immense good will
- “People never get sick of hearing about your site’s updates. It
must feel pretty freakin’ good that your site is so desirable.” - “It’s pretty cool that you can get away with stuff like that. People
actually do want to know when there’s something new.”
- “People never get sick of hearing about your site’s updates. It
- It can pay for itself.
- Immense good will
- Many, e.g.:
Speaking experience
Speakers
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Lisa Hackenberger
WebLaws.orgBiography
Lisa is a social media analyst, entrepreneur, and pixel art connoisseur. She works as WebLaws.org’s Project Manager, doing strategic planning, kicking organizational ass, and helping set the company’s direction. She is passionate about many issues, including fair use and improving the legal system.
Sessions
-
- Title: Law is Code, and We're Here to Open Source It
- Track: Culture
- Room: B201
- Time: 10:00 – 10:45am
-
Excerpt:
Anyone can show how to save the world. We tell how to receive unsolicited love letters while doing it.
- Speakers: Robb Shecter, Lisa Hackenberger
-
-
Robb Shecter
WebLaws.org- Website: http://www.weblaws.org/robb/about
- Twitter: dogweather
Biography
Robb is a programmer-turned-law student focusing on geek law: intellectual property, copyright, trademark, licensing, open source, and fair use.
Sessions
-
- Title: Law is Code, and We're Here to Open Source It
- Track: Culture
- Room: B201
- Time: 10:00 – 10:45am
-
Excerpt:
Anyone can show how to save the world. We tell how to receive unsolicited love letters while doing it.
- Speakers: Robb Shecter, Lisa Hackenberger