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U.S. House of Representatives Makes Resolutions in XML

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the about-time dept.

RennieScum writes: "The House of Representatives is turning to technology with their test of XML for use with resolutions according to this article. It reports that the HR has made 100 DTDs and uses Microsoft Word and a special converter to do the job. Testing has begun and their goal is to start using it in January of next year. See also http://xml.house.gov/ And it looks like the DTDs will be free to use and distribute!"

20 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. DTD is sooo 1999. by km790816 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the government for you.

    When every tool under the sun is using XML schemas, the House is announcing their support for DTDs.

    I guess it's still a step forward.

    --
    A speech...
    1. Re:DTD is sooo 1999. by SirSlud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your government must make an attempt to stick to standards when they are dealing with accessibility. They have to use technologies that have had some time to settle. By virtue of you pointing out that DTDs are 3 years old and you consider them obsolete, you reinforce the point that by selecting bleeding-edge formats/technologies/etc, they might be investing time and some of your money into something that wont be around in a year or two.

      And then in a year or two, you'd just complain how the government cant choose their technologies right.

      Start thinking about where you're getting this 'government is stupid/terrible/lazy/blah/blah' message from - alot of it is from private interests that enjoy the freedom and lack of public accountability to select their technological infrastructure based on higher demoninators than your government should. While the 'saavy' factor will always be higher in the private sector, dont *always* take this as an indication that government must be technologically inept (although, like anybody who's core competancy isn't technology, they frequently are) ... often they are doing something much smarter than private interests give them credit for. All of this is moot, of course, when discussing moves the government makes on _behalf_ of powerful private interests, but thats another argument and does not apply in this situation.

      It's like being a private teacher vs public. Private teachers can probably be more 'progressive', but at the cost of maybe teaching in ways that might soon be proven to be ineffectual or bad, while public systems generally must move slower in order to ensure that the ideas have been vetted and that everyone has a moderately equal opportunity to access the fruits of the system.

      Like parents, sysadmins, anybody who has an onus to cater to the greater good rather than the richer good, sometimes you have to make decisions that are going to be publicly derided even if its for the common good. Sometimes you have to just give the benifit of the doubt, though I realize this kind of attitude is in short supply these days.

      Ok, rant off.

      --
      "Old man yells at systemd"
  2. Uhhh.... by Verizon+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Going to http://xml.house.gov/Members/mbr107.xml renders a perfectly viewable directory of representatives in Internet Explorer, but Mozilla dumps it all as raw text in one giant paragraph. What gives?!?

    --

    Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski

    1. Re:Uhhh.... by MiTEG · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's all screwed up with Opera 6.01 also.

      --
      The future isn't what it used to be.
  3. How Slashdot-like by jaaron · · Score: 5, Funny

    So the government tries to update their use of technology to use an open format like XML and publish the DTD's and inevitably the first 10 slashdot posts complain that the government is too behind the times because that don't use new (and better) XML schemas! Talk about geeks! :)

    --
    Who said Freedom was Fair?
  4. Stylesheet issues... by jaaron · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's because of the XSL style sheet they use. You can find it at http://xml.house.gov/Members/member-sorter-vb.xsl. (Use view source to see the actual XSLT). Notice that they use VBScript!

    --
    Who said Freedom was Fair?
  5. Lawmakers who don't understand the law by kuroth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the cited page...

    Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, these DTDs are not subject to copyright protection and are in the public domain.
    ...
    These DTDs can be redistributed and/or modified freely provided that any derivative works bear some notice that they are derived from it, and any modified versions bear some notice that they have been modified.

    Sorry, cupcakes, that's not how the public domain works. If you release it into the public domain, you no longer have *any* control whatsoever upon the modification, reuse, or redistribution of the work. The required notice clause listed above in invalid.

    Cite, cite (#3), cite.

    Kuroth

  6. Example of the new markup by crucini · · Score: 5, Funny


    <bill status="proposed" name="CBDTPA">
    <sponsor name="Fritz Hollings" constituency="Disney">
    <violatesAmendment number="1">
    <violatesAmendment number="4">
    <contribution donor="Disney" amount="24500.00">
    <contribution donor="AOL" amount="33000.00">
    <contribution donor="National Association of Broadcasters" amount="25000.00">
    <excuse>Promote broadband adoption</excuse>
    <excuse>Save the arts from extinction</excuse>
    </bill>

    1. Re:Example of the new markup by danro · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Neat idea...
      Just write a http proxy that applies an XSLT to the document. Generate the tag-values from the opensecrets.org database (if they have one).
      Could probably be done by one person in a week or two, if opensecrets keep a reasonable usable database, and are willing to cooperate.

      If I were an american I would be tempted to write the thing myself...
      It would be great to just go to a website and see all bills with a header that indicated which elected officials was involved, and their voting record and ties to special interests.

      Hell, if anyone wants to do this, I am willing to contribute just because it's cool...

      --

      "First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
  7. They are using WordPerfect Too by frank249 · · Score: 3, Informative
    It reports that the HR has made 100 DTDs and uses Microsoft Word and a special converter to do the job.

    The article actualy says It shows how each line, name and term has an identifying tag, created by exporting the document from a word processor such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect into a special XML template.

    That would make sense since most of the US government still uses WordPerfect. WordPerfect comes with extensive XML publishing functions including making your own DTDs.

    BTW Corel just announced that a new version of Ventura Publisher is coming out in the fall with cross platform XML publishing built in. The next version of WordPerfect is also going to have a much better XML publisher now that they bought XMetaL.

    --

    Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.

  8. DTDs, Schema, and XDR by jaaron · · Score: 4, Informative
    Actually, if you check the source, you'll see that they are using XML namespaces and schemas. Actually, they're using something called XDR (XML-Data-Reduced) which was developed by Microsoft and is upwards compatable with XML schema. I'm familiar with schema but not XDR. For more information, you may want to check out these links:

    And thanks to this poster for pointing it out.
    --
    Who said Freedom was Fair?
  9. Great! by Rombuu · · Score: 5, Funny

    And it looks like the DTDs will be free to use and distribute!

    Great, now I can make my own crazy laws! Yipee!

    --

    DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
  10. Another Use for Microsoft crap by codeguy007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought the US Government was starting to learn that Microsoft software was to be avoided. By finding more uses for it, I am afraid that it is obviously not true.

    1. Re:Another Use for Microsoft crap by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, they are using MS software, but this once they are using it to export things into a well documented, open format that could be made to work with anything (unlike a Word document). Sure, maybe different browsers aren't good at reading the XML the government is putting it out in the way that makes IE most comfortable, but at least it is in a DOCUMENTED format this time, one that the open source community can respond to and implement fairly quickly if there's incentive to (and I think having all major US government stuff in that format would be a big enough incentive.)

      Is it still biased in favor of IE users right now? Absolutely, I won't deny that. But if it is actually a properly documented format for once then that bias won't last. This isn't a perfect situation, but it's a major step up from publishing things in proprietary binary word processor formats like they did in the past.

      --

      Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

  11. What part about public domain don't they get? by ClarkEvans · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dig the notice at xml.house.gov -- The document type definitions (DTDs) presented on this site were developed at the U.S. House of Representatives by employees of the Federal Government in the course of their official duties. Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, these DTDs are not subject to copyright protection and are in the public domain. These DTDs are in draft form. The U.S. House of Representatives assumes no responsibility whatsoever for their use by other parties, and makes no guarantees, expressed or implied, about their quality, reliability, or any other characteristic. These DTDs can be redistributed and/or modified freely provided that any derivative works bear some notice that they are derived from it, and any modified versions bear some notice that they have been modified. (emphasis mine)

    Either these DTDs are copyrighted and they can place restrictions upon distribution or they arn't. This need people have to control everything is just driving me crazy. The whole reason for Title 17 Section 105 is so that the Government can't put restrictions on this kind of stuff (bills, laws, etc.) ...

  12. Schema war is not over...W3C XML-Schema is bloated by ClarkEvans · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why use DTDs?

    Have you ever tried to use XML Schema? It's a bloated peice of ****. Relax is tons better. And for the government's purposes, DTDs work much better and are an ISO standard.

  13. ddt free to use? huh??? by CProgrammer98 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "And it looks like the DTDs will be free to use and distribute"

    Ummmmm if you're using a validating xml parser, you HAVE to have access to the dtd!!! All DTDs have to be free to use!

    --
    And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
  14. Indeed, it's not free by twitter · · Score: 3, Informative
    The mention of M$ Word put me on alert, as have previous stories here which have demostrated that XML will simply be a container for propriatory data formats like M$ Word. Closer examination, however, reveals a much more horrible arangement.

    XML is dependent on unicode, as the US Government site's reference states. Follow the W3C to unicode ,

    Unicode is required by modern standards such as XML, Java, ECMAScript (JavaScript), LDAP, CORBA 3.0, WML, etc., and is the official way to implement ISO/IEC 10646.

    Unicode is owned by Unicode Incorporated and all of it's documents and standarts are issued under a restrictive license with a unilaeral change clause:

    Modification by Unicode Unicode shall have the right to modify this Agreement at any time by posting it to this site. The user may not assign any part of this Agreement without Unicodes prior written consent.

    Dare I compare this evil arangement to ASCII and other predecesors? To have IBM, M$, Sun and other OWN the very format your data takes and to be able to change it and break previous implimentations at whim, and YOU may not? Who wants to be a plump nickle that any thing vaugly resembling unicode in the future will be called a "derivative" and it's distribution halted? Is this not a collusion of comercial software vendors to control information at it's most basic representation? Does anyone else here see this as the ultimate extention of copyright? Evil, Evil, Evil.

    I'd rather see the US government continue to publish in the American Standard for Information Interchange. This extensible standard is no standard at all.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Indeed, it's not free by RennieScum · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Paranoia.
      It shows how each line, name and term has an identifying tag, created by exporting the document from a word processor such as Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect into a special XML template
      They're usign a *tool* to help convert .doc and .wpd files to XML. They're just leveraging their assets (MSW*rd being an, ahem, asset) so that secretaries and regular folk can do the work of text entry in tools they are familiar with, which then gets converted into a useable format.

      Settle down, they're not trying to use MSXML engines to do the work. Sheesh.
      --
      ...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
  15. HR has made 100 DTDs by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Congress has always been full of lyahs and chetahs. That it's now full of schemas is really no surpise.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!