[Open-Legislation] Updated the working group page

Mon Apr 30 12:26:23 UTC 2012

On this note, we are hosting a conference today for parliamentary
monitoring organizations in Washington, DC, featuring leaders of groups
from 37 countries.  A livestream is available here: www.ndi.org/live.  The
hashtag is #pmo2012.  Feel free to join in remotely.

Best,
Andrew

2012/4/30 JOSEFSSON Erik <erik.josefsson at europarl.europa.eu>

> **
> On 04/29/2012 10:48 PM, Rufus Pollock wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> I've just tidied up the Working Group's current home page:
> <http://wiki.okfn.org/Working_Groups/Legislation> <http://wiki.okfn.org/Working_Groups/Legislation>
>
>
> Brilliant!
>
>
>  In particular I've added a revised Purpose sectoin based on an irc
> chat with Friedrich a few weeks. It now reads:
>
> 1. Define the area of Open Legislation - what it means and what it involves
>
>
> Your formulation is very good, and I think "collaborative work on legal
> documents" should definitely be within the scope.
>
> If we manage to licence at4am under AGPLv3+ and scrape (or otherwise
> export) complete EP datasets, then we could build a perfect clone on the
> internet, which in effect would be a "Parallel Parliament" where the debate
> on amendments and justifications could be long-tailed far beyond the
> Brussels Bubble.
>
> What I think we thought was self evident as activists back in 2003 when we
> distributed voting lists (FFII clones of the VL's that the Tabling Office
> and Group Staff produced) to MEPs outside Plenary and via email, was not at
> all self evident to the managers of the decision making process in the EP.
>
> We were really just delivering the right information in the right time in
> the right format to the right people. Normally that's a service provided by
> the lobby industry and not civil society.
>
> If you are an MEP (or a trusted Group Staffer), the difference between
> cut'n pasting an amendment from i.e. BSA that you have received in an email
> (right information in the right time in the right format to the right
> people...) and doing the same from an on-line application that looks the
> same as the one you are pasting the amendment into is not that big in terms
> of effort. But huge in terms of pretty much everything else.
>
> Also, since the cash-for-amendments scandal (
> http://www.alter-eu.org/events/2012/04/02/brussels-university-debate-about-eu-lobbying-with-alter-eu-panelist)
> I think the number of MEPs who still prefer to sell their services in bars
> around Place Luxembourg rather than from home over a TS session is close to
> zero, while the work-from-home MEPs are probably growing in numbers (
> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/portalep/tsmain.html).
>
>
>
>  2. Act as a central point of reference and support for people who are
> interested in open legislation
>
>
> Sure!
>
>
>  3. Identify practices of early adopters, collecting data and developing guides.
>
>
> I would push for EPFSUG here. The user group has been involved in
> ParlTrack and Pippi Longstrings in various ways and could potentially be
> tapped on info on how "at4am+parltrack applications" should look like to
> make sense and properly reflect the work inside the EP.
>
>
>  4. Act as a hub for the development of low cost, community driven
> projects related to open legislation
>
>
> I have a feeling things are moving a bit behind the scenes on these
> matters so I'd like to push for AGPLv3+ licensed projects as early as
> possible. It would be a pity if a successful project suddenly gets an EU
> grant but with an EUPL licensing condition attached (unless the EUPL
> Appendix is amended to include AGPLv3+).
>
>
>  What do people think?
>
>
>
> Brilliant!
>
>
> //Erik
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Erik Josefsson
> Advisor on Internet Policies
> Greens/EFA Group<http://www.greens-efa.eu/36-details/josefsson-erik-138.html>
> GSM: +32484082063
> BXL: PHS 04C075 TEL: +3222832667
> SBG: WIC M03005 TEL: +33388173776
>
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>
>

-- 
*Andrew G. Mandelbaum*

Senior Program Officer, Governance
National Democratic Institute

Phone: 202-728-5552
Skype: agm3jordan
Email: amandelbaum at ndi.org
Twitter: agm3dc

National Democratic Institute

455 Massachusetts Ave., NW, 8th Floor

Washington, DC  20001
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