Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to be forked

Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by Groxx on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @10:34PM (#4353570)

Awesome stuff. I couldn't find anywhere though: is this an 'official' project, or is it just someone who processed the XML forms into markdown?

Also, this: "All German citizens can easily find an up-to-date version of their laws online."

And it's only 130 megs of markdown when zipped (246 unzipped)! A mere 4,737,628 lines[1]! Surely you have time to read it, right? And therefore be a well-informed, law-abiding citizen?

I wonder how big America's would be :|

  [1] `wc -l $(find . -name '*.md')` admittedly very rough

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by jaseg on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @10:48PM (#4353610)

This is not an official project, "just" someone who registered the organization "Bundesregierung" ("Federal Government") at github and processed the official XMLs into markdown.

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by Groxx on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @11:06PM (#4353672)

Yeah, sorry - 'just' is a relative term :) Didn't mean to belittle the act, it's still a big and interesting project.

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by patrickg on Wednesday August 08, 2012 @01:49AM (#4354140)

Nitpick: no "Bundesregierung" (Government) but "Bundestag" (House of representatives).

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by yaix on Wednesday August 08, 2012 @02:11AM (#4354203)

My guess is that about 129 megs of those are tax laws.

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by NonEUCitizen on Wednesday August 08, 2012 @03:55AM (#4354430)

I think this is where "German citizens can easily find an up-to-date version of their laws online" :

http://www.bgbl.de/Xaver/start.xav?startbk=Bundesanzeiger_BG...

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by hendrik-xdest on Wednesday August 08, 2012 @06:48AM (#4354881)

It's not. You still have to have the complete text of the law and manually add the changes that are described in the Bundesanzeiger. It states for example something like "Change in BGB: Paragraph 123, section 45, change the word 'and' to 'and/or'. Only completely new texts would be printed in full.

The Bundesanzeiger is merely the last step in the law making process. First, the two law making institutions (Bundestag, Bundesrat) have to vote in favor of the law and the president has put his X under it. Only after the law is published in the Bundesanzeiger it takes effect.

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Re:Germany's laws on github, machine-readable and ready to b... by NonEUCitizen on Wednesday August 08, 2012 @08:46PM (#4358927)

Does the government publish a version where the deltas are already applied?

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