[DFRI-listan] Fwd: Re: [at4am] Information about at4am during RMLL

Sat, 29 Jun 2013 03:36:43 -0700 

Med anledning av mötesprotokollets per 20130626 omfattning
https://www.dfri.se/dfri/motesprotokoll/5-20130626/ önskar jag särskilt
lyfta fram punkt 10 genom att förmedla följande dialog mellan Philip
Luppens (programmerare AT4AM Core Toolkit) och Nicolas Pettiaux
(drivkraft RMLL):

    https://at4am.eu/pipermail/at4am/2013-June/date.html

Yay! \o/

Vänligen.

//Erik


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: [at4am] Information about at4am during RMLL
Date:   Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:35:29 +0200
From:   Philip Luppens
Reply-To:       Automatic Tool for AMendments Mailing List
To:     Nicolas Pettiaux
CC:     Automatic Tool for AMendments Mailing List



On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 5:59 PM, Nicolas Pettiauxwrote:

    2013/6/27 Philip Luppens:

    Dear Philip,
    > The idea is that I refuse to call a 1.0 before all loose
    > ends have been resolved, even if that means a delay of several
    weeks/months.
    I can understand

    > We're still learning ourselves the hangs of governing an open source
    > project, and while I do have some experience from within the ASF, it's
    > something else to start from scratch. We'll see where it takes us,
    and I
    > hope to get some honest criticism and feedback about what works,
    and what
    > doesn't.

    at least we could let the participants of RMLL/LSM know that their
    honest criticism and feedback is expected.


Any feedback is welcome. Due to the nature of the project, the assumed
adopters are not exactly known for being a) very vocal nor b) very quick
in their adoption. We're low on resources, but we aim high - even if
just to develop a vision that can be shared for the future.
 


    Wouldn't an access to a running instance of at4am, filled with data
    would help the community to work with  at4am ? Would it be possible to
    announce such a thing ?


It's perfectly possible to run your own instance of AT4AM, backed by for
example a PostgreSQL database (which is what I'm running locally). The
instances on at4am.org <http://at4am.org>, however, are backed by an
in-memory database, so whenever we do a (nightly) deployment, the
backend is wiped clean.

Now, I have been thinking (a lot) about federation & importing of
trusted content, but until we can convince the EP to share its published
proposals in a more open format (preferably in Akoma Ntoso (AN)), this
will be limited to those source text that are converted (semi)-manually.
Afaik, the AN transformation in the EP is not yet entirely into place,
and the existing XML schema in use is too limited and would prove quite
challenging to transform automatically (of course, once again Italy
shows us how it's done by providing pretty much all their documents in AN).
 


    > What kind of information are you looking for, exactly?
    Anything that would attract the attention to many people from France,
    Germany, Belgium, Spain and elsewhere who try hard to convince their
    parlements and governements to use free software and who could push
    them to use at4am.


Well, at this moment we seem to have some interest coming from Italy.
I'm not familiar at all with the procedures nor the way of amending or
drafting in any of the aforementioned countries, but I do believe the
core is flexible enough to handle those cases as well. The only problem
is the availability of source texts ...

I'm not entirely sure what would be of interest to those attending the
workshop; we do aim to provide in time (given enough resources), a full
turn-key parliamentary solution (drafting, marking, amending, voting,
consolidating, ... ), but this will remain a distant dream until we get
more backing.

There's also the difference in target audience: we aim to provide
governments and large organisations with these tools, but they might
just as well be used to improve legislation by allowing citizens to
participate actively, and even for lobbyists to make their lives easier
(although no-one wants to admit that publicly, of course).
 


    There will also be a political rond table at RMLL/LSM onTuesday 9
    morning with MEP
    
http://schedule2013.rmll.info/programme/plenieres/article/table-ronde-politique-pouvoir?lang=en
    where the topic of at4am could also in few words be discussed.


Anything related to AT4AM is considered a step forward, so yes, if
possible, try to raise the topic.
 


    As I understand it, at4am will be a free software that could help
    parliaments to collaborate on the tools they use, but also allow the
    citizens to follow more closely the evolution of the legislative
    texts. All this is for me very important.


It will become more and more important as more people want to
participate in the making of laws, as they demand more transparency and
insight into the legislative processes, and as they demand a more
streamlined and cost-effective government. Our tool is but once tiny
building block in getting governments to adopt a new strategy and to
migrate away from closed source & proprietary formats (I do start to
sound like a political activist now, don't I? *sigh*).
 


    > By the way, I originally had this workshop planned on the 12th of
    July - did
    > it move?

    I don't know if it was announced earlier on July 12th.

    This JURI session at the EP has as last talk at 17.20 - 17.35 « The
    experience of the EP with free and open source software» Giancarlo
    Vilella, Director-General, DG ITEC

    Mr Vilella could speak about at4am too. Just a guess.


I'm assuming he will. And 'paperless'. Or 'papersmart', as our friends
from the UN so eloquently put it.

Cheers,

Phil
 


    Thanks,

    Nicolas

    --
    Nicolas Pettiaux - http://rmll.info - #rmll2013 - 8 au 11 juillet
    Libre Software Meeting @ Brussels : 200 talks, 30 workshops - July 8-11
    Rencontres mondiales du logiciel libre @ Bruxelles : 200 conférences,
    30 ateliers




-- 
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." -
Randy Pausch

Till