11 ms·

DNC just open-sourced their voter registration platform

113 points by kine 14y ago

Hoff 14y ago
The first part of the software license looks to be BSD/MIT-like with the to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software,... sentence, but then there's this paragraph: This permission does not include: (a) any use of the Software other than for its intended purpose; or (b) any use of the Software in any manner that violates applicable law. Any use of the Software other than as specifically authorized herein is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein.
- tubbo 14y ago
  Trying to cover their ass if it's used to commit voter fraud?
- tptacek 14y ago
  I imagine that that's CYA; one thing both party organizations have in common: they are saturated with lawyers.
  - greenyoda 14y ago
    I can see how (b) gives them legal cover, since it says that you can't use the software to forge voter registrations. However, (a) implies that you can't reuse the code as the basis for software that's used to fill out some unrelated type of PDF form, like a tax form. So the terms of the license are really too restrictive to make the software legally safe for anyone else to use -- my employer's lawyers would never allow me to use this software as part of our commercial product. So while it may be technically "open source", it's not really a contribution to the free software community.
  - Hoff 14y ago
    There's asset covering, and there's a license where you're assumed guilty until litigated. And going against an organization that's "saturated with lawyers"? Even if I were creating a voter registration web site, I'd likely not use this package, as reusing this PDF fulfillment package for any other use within that web site would potentially put the organization in licensing jeopardy. With this license, it'd be safer to re-implement rather than to re-use. I'm not touching this license with a barge pole.
- balpha 14y ago
  In particular this means that this is anything but open source (at least if you go by the OSI definition, which I do).
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    It also precludes it from being free software, as defined by the FSF.
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    In particular this means that this is anything but open source (at least if you go by the OSI definition, which I do). Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I know some pedants argue that OSI don't have a registered trademark on "Open Source" and that they "don't get to decide what is or isn't open source." But in practice, many (most?) of us do acknowledge the OSI definition as being the de-facto definition of "Open Source."
tptacek 14y ago
This application is very, very simple; it's a practically the starting skeleton of a modern Rails/Devise application. One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format". There are a LOT of business processes that work like that.
- gary4gar 14y ago
  it is missing integration tests, though
- luriel 14y ago
  > One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format". As others have pointed out, the (not really open source) license doesn't allow any uses for other purposes.
  - adrinavarro 14y ago
    Maybe you can't copy-paste it and replace part of its insides as with other apps, but it's still useful if learning and testing on local, I guess.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    It would be silly to copy an application this simple verbatim, but that same property makes it very easy to read.
  - fleitz 14y ago
    I don't think so, it isn't clear from the legalese what the intended purpose of the software is. It could also be argued that because they have not warranted the product as fit for any purpose that there is no intended purpose.
- cperciva 14y ago
  web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format FWIW, I've found that "generate HTML and feed it through wkhtmltopdf" is a surprisingly effective way of doing this.
grandalf 14y ago
Wouldn't a better strategy be a Twilio app that calls voters and informs them that they are registered to vote already?
- greenyoda 14y ago
  The point of this software is to make it easier for people who have never registered before to register. The Democratic party probably spent their resources on this because they think that a large percentage of unregistered voters come from demographic groups that tend to vote for Democrats, such as recent college grads who were not yet old enough to vote in the 2008 election. How would your strategy improve the expected outcome for the Democrats?
dnctroll 14y ago
This will be helpful for the DNC to register the dead people and dogs needed to win elections this year with national unemployment at 8.3%.
- grourk 14y ago
  Perfect handle.
gary4gar 14y ago
I like how the registration form shows the form validation errors inline: http://i.imgur.com/U5QL1.png http://i.imgur.com/U5QL1.png Looking at the source view(https://github.com/democrats/voter-registration/blob/master/app/views/register/_form.html.erb https://github.com/democrats/voter-registration/blob/master/...) it doesn't seems there is some extra markup, unless I am missing something. So, How can I implement the same in my rails app?
- cheald 14y ago
  That's simple_form at work. Great little gem.
  - gary4gar 14y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out :)
cap10morgan 14y ago
I worked as a Rails dev at the DNC in 2010-2011. I pushed for open-sourcing our fully-featured voter reg. Rails app back then, but didn't find much support for the idea. The political world is pretty wary of "giving code away" because the opposition will use it, etc. So, progress? We were allowed to open-source some infrastructure code back then: https://github.com/dnclabs https://github.com/dnclabs Hopefully they'll continue working on this tool and make it something worth using and contributing to. I've tried to convince several political orgs. I worked for in the past to do this, but so far none have bitten.
mediocregopher 14y ago
Maybe it's just my screen, but I find that shade of grey to be incredibly difficult to read. I do like the trend towards technological openness though, hopefully we'll be seeing more of this sort of thing.

113 points by kine 14y ago

Hoff 14y ago

The first part of the software license looks to be BSD/MIT-like with the to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software,... sentence, but then there's this paragraph: This permission does not include: (a) any use of the Software other than for its intended purpose; or (b) any use of the Software in any manner that violates applicable law. Any use of the Software other than as specifically authorized herein is strictly prohibited and will terminate the license granted herein.

tubbo 14y ago
Trying to cover their ass if it's used to commit voter fraud?
tptacek 14y ago
I imagine that that's CYA; one thing both party organizations have in common: they are saturated with lawyers.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  I can see how (b) gives them legal cover, since it says that you can't use the software to forge voter registrations. However, (a) implies that you can't reuse the code as the basis for software that's used to fill out some unrelated type of PDF form, like a tax form. So the terms of the license are really too restrictive to make the software legally safe for anyone else to use -- my employer's lawyers would never allow me to use this software as part of our commercial product. So while it may be technically "open source", it's not really a contribution to the free software community.
- Hoff 14y ago
  There's asset covering, and there's a license where you're assumed guilty until litigated. And going against an organization that's "saturated with lawyers"? Even if I were creating a voter registration web site, I'd likely not use this package, as reusing this PDF fulfillment package for any other use within that web site would potentially put the organization in licensing jeopardy. With this license, it'd be safer to re-implement rather than to re-use. I'm not touching this license with a barge pole.
balpha 14y ago
In particular this means that this is anything but open source (at least if you go by the OSI definition, which I do).
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  It also precludes it from being free software, as defined by the FSF.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  In particular this means that this is anything but open source (at least if you go by the OSI definition, which I do). Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I know some pedants argue that OSI don't have a registered trademark on "Open Source" and that they "don't get to decide what is or isn't open source." But in practice, many (most?) of us do acknowledge the OSI definition as being the de-facto definition of "Open Source."

tptacek 14y ago

This application is very, very simple; it's a practically the starting skeleton of a modern Rails/Devise application. One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format". There are a LOT of business processes that work like that.

gary4gar 14y ago
it is missing integration tests, though
luriel 14y ago
> One useful reason to bookmark it: it's a pretty good how-to for "any web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format". As others have pointed out, the (not really open source) license doesn't allow any uses for other purposes.
- adrinavarro 14y ago
  Maybe you can't copy-paste it and replace part of its insides as with other apps, but it's still useful if learning and testing on local, I guess.
- tptacek 14y ago
  It would be silly to copy an application this simple verbatim, but that same property makes it very easy to read.
- fleitz 14y ago
  I don't think so, it isn't clear from the legalese what the intended purpose of the software is. It could also be argued that because they have not warranted the product as fit for any purpose that there is no intended purpose.
cperciva 14y ago
web application whose purpose is to spit out PDF files that need to follow a specific format FWIW, I've found that "generate HTML and feed it through wkhtmltopdf" is a surprisingly effective way of doing this.

grandalf 14y ago

Wouldn't a better strategy be a Twilio app that calls voters and informs them that they are registered to vote already?

greenyoda 14y ago
The point of this software is to make it easier for people who have never registered before to register. The Democratic party probably spent their resources on this because they think that a large percentage of unregistered voters come from demographic groups that tend to vote for Democrats, such as recent college grads who were not yet old enough to vote in the 2008 election. How would your strategy improve the expected outcome for the Democrats?

dnctroll 14y ago

This will be helpful for the DNC to register the dead people and dogs needed to win elections this year with national unemployment at 8.3%.

grourk 14y ago
Perfect handle.

gary4gar 14y ago

I like how the registration form shows the form validation errors inline: http://i.imgur.com/U5QL1.png http://i.imgur.com/U5QL1.png Looking at the source view(https://github.com/democrats/voter-registration/blob/master/app/views/register/_form.html.erb https://github.com/democrats/voter-registration/blob/master/...) it doesn't seems there is some extra markup, unless I am missing something. So, How can I implement the same in my rails app?

cheald 14y ago
That's simple_form at work. Great little gem.
- gary4gar 14y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out :)

cap10morgan 14y ago

I worked as a Rails dev at the DNC in 2010-2011. I pushed for open-sourcing our fully-featured voter reg. Rails app back then, but didn't find much support for the idea. The political world is pretty wary of "giving code away" because the opposition will use it, etc. So, progress? We were allowed to open-source some infrastructure code back then: https://github.com/dnclabs https://github.com/dnclabs Hopefully they'll continue working on this tool and make it something worth using and contributing to. I've tried to convince several political orgs. I worked for in the past to do this, but so far none have bitten.

mediocregopher 14y ago

Maybe it's just my screen, but I find that shade of grey to be incredibly difficult to read. I do like the trend towards technological openness though, hopefully we'll be seeing more of this sort of thing.