Fwd: ecfr

[Carl Malamud <xxxx@media.org>]

not for distribution.  you asked what our focus is.  in addition to codes, we have a little project to take the electronic code of federal regulations, open source it, and then incorporate all the standards that have been incorporated by reference.  http://standards.gov/sibr/query/index.cfm has a partial list of those standards.

Begin forwarded message:

From: "John Wonderlich" <johnwonderlich@gmail.com>

Date: September 12, 2008 10:00:17 AM PDT

To: "Carl Malamud" <Carl@media.org>

Subject: Re: ecfr

Hi Carl,

I'll run it around here and get back to you.  Sounds very exciting.

John

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Carl Malamud <Carl@media.org> wrote:

Hi John -

I'm about to purchase the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations as "SGML text + images."  This is a $17,325 product from GPO.

http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/eproducts.jsp

We will simply proxy the feed for the net, making the data available for anonymous FTP.  (In addition, I have a little product that will make use of that feed, but that's another story.)

I've been passing the hat so that a coalition of public interest groups is making the purchase.  Josh Tauberer has agreed to contribute for this purchase on behalf of GovTrack.US.  Might Sunlight Foundation contribute $3,000 towards this purchase?

My intent is to deliver a check with a letter to the Public Printer.  The letter will serve two purposes:

1. I will place the order for the ECFR product and acknowledge contributors, pointing out that we are raising money from the american people to buy data that the american people already paid for so that ...

2. An unsolicited joint venture will be proposed that they open source all the rest of their products and that we serve as a proxy.  That way, they won't shoulder any administration or distribution costs.  And, since they are required to create these products for their own internal purposes, the marginal cost will be zero.  They have the authority under their enabling legislation to do such a joint venture.

I would allow you to review this letter before it goes in.

Would Sunlight be able to be part of this?

Best regards,

Carl