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US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Embraces FOSS, Publishes On Github

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-tax-dollars-actually-at-work dept.

New submitter gchaix writes "The U.S. Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has publicly embraced open source software and has begun posting its code to GitHub. From the article: 'Until recently, the federal government was hesitant to adopt open-source software due to a perceived ambiguity around its legal status as a commercial good. In 2009, however, the Department of Defense made it clear that open-source software products are on equal footing with their proprietary counterparts. We agree, and the first section of our source code policy is unequivocal: We use open-source software, and we do so because it helps us fulfill our mission. Open-source software works because it enables people from around the world to share their contributions with each other. The CFPB has benefited tremendously from other people's efforts, so it's only right that we give back to the community by sharing our work with others.'"

12 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Government working for the people??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a trap!

    1. Re:Government working for the people??? by Mojo66 · · Score: 2

      Ballmer will surely throw a chair at them.

    2. Re:Government working for the people??? by Ihmhi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, the CFPB really is all about the people. The problem is that the government created them and then proceeded to do everything they could to keep them toothless when, holy shit, they were actually trying to protect consumers.

      Most Senate Republicans have said they would block Cordray's nomination – or any other – unless the president agrees to changes that would replace the director with a panel, let Congress more easily cut the agency's budget and allow an oversight panel of banking regulators to more easily override bureau rules.

      http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2011/07/elizabeth_warren_leaving_the_c.html

      Congress wants to have "oversight" on the commission so they can basically tell it "no" anytime it wants to enact some sort of serious protections for us. Richard Cordray seems like a good choice, but we won't really know until the Commission starts making policy.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  2. How's that song go? by HeckRuler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Proud to be an American..."

  3. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is kinda of a joke. Congress created the agency after the wall street crash but put in a provision that the agency could not act untill congress approved the chief of the Bureau. They then proceeded to block appointments to the agency. Thus the agency was in limbo till Jan of this year. Obama appointed someone to head the agency with a potentially illegal recess appointment.

    1. Re:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Democrats created the agency after the wall street crash but put Republicans in a provision that the agency could not act untill congress approved the chief of the Bureau. Republicans proceeded to block appointments to the agency. Thus the agency was in limbo till Jan of this year. Obama appointed someone to head the agency with a legal recess appointment.

      Few typos you had there.

    2. Re:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 2

      But with respect to TFA, so what?

      --
      I call it 'The Aristocrats'
    3. Re:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 2

      Ahh but try that and a single Senator can use a stunt called a filibuster. In this stunt the Senator debates the bill forever preventing the bill from being voting on. You need 2/3 majority to tell a Senator to shut up and vote. So acts that only require a simple majority according to the constitution to win get promoted to super majority tests.

    4. Re:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It was potentially illegal because Congress was not offically in recess. Republicans have gone out of the way to keep congress out of recess for the the last 3 years using procedural stunts.

      What's interesting about that is that, although the Senate was engaging in a charade of a "session," Obama didn't actually have to wait for them to "adjourn." Article 3 gives the executive the power to declare congress in recess in situations where the houses are divided regarding going into recess--as they were at the time.

      Why didn't he use it? It's spelled out in the constitution--not even an amendment, it's part of the original text--so what gives? Why not just issue an executive order that says "Pursuant to Article 3 powers of the executive, with both houses of congress in disagreement over whether to adjourn, I hereby declare them to be in recess until xyz date."

      It wouldn't have been any kind of power-grab... It is the most constitutional thing he could have done, and would have been absolutely air-tight. He'd have out-manuevered the GOP, gotten his nominees appointed, and been able to move on. Instead, he gave his political enemies more ammunition to attack him with. Surely he has to have figured out they're going to be pissed and sue, no matter what he does, and that the Supreme Court fix is in, so he's got to conduct himself in a manner that is just absolutely constitutionally unquestionably allowed.

      --
      Who did what now?
    5. Re:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by RocketRabbit · · Score: 2

      Filibusters are great because most laws are awful. The more deadlocked that Congress gets the better it is for the rest of us.

  4. Excellent! Also: DoD open source software links by dwheeler · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is excellent news!

    In some ways this policy (of the US Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) picks up from the the US Department of Defense (DoD) policies. Unfortunately, the DoD just changed the URLs for some of its information on Open Source Software (OSS), and doesn't (yet) have redirects, making them hard to find and compare. So here are new links to the DoD stuff on open source software, if you want them.

    A good place to start is the Department of Defense (DoD) Free Open Source Software (FOSS) Community of Interest page, hosted by the DoD Chief Information Officer (CIO).

    From that page, you can reach:

    If you are interested in the topic of DoD and OSS, you might also be interested in the Military Open Source Software (Mil-OSS) group.

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
  5. Excellent! by interval1066 · · Score: 2

    WTG CFPB!

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'