Don't Tie a Horse To a Tree and Other Open Data Lessons 109
itwbennett writes "Baltimore this week became the first city to hop on the open data bandwagon with the launch of the Baltimore Decoded website. The site makes the city's charter and codes more accessible to the public and will eventually include information on court decisions, legislative tracking and city technical standards (e.g., building regulations, zoning restrictions, fire codes). The site also offers a RESTful, JSON-based API for accessing the data. ITworld's Phil Johnson dug in and found these lesser-known Baltimore codes: You can't hold more than 1 yard sale every 6 months, you can't tie a horse to a tree, and you can't have fruit on a wharf. What you do with this information is up to you."
"open law" state? (Score:2, Informative)
WTF? Maryland law (both statutes [umd.edu] and COMAR [state.md.us]) has been on-line for years.
And Baltimore City code [baltimorecity.gov] has also been on-line for a while.
Maybe this is a nicer interface or something, but pretending that putting laws on-line is some kind of breakthrough is counterfactual.
Re:No Horse/Tree Connectivity? (Score:2, Informative)
while that would makes sense it currently works like this
1) make so many new laws every year that it is flatout impossible for any 1 person to have read them all (forget understood and considered)
2) have courts hold 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' as a legal axiom
3) jail anyone you want, anytime you want (you can always find a reason)
welcome to modern tyranny, it's a lot more subtle then old-style tyranny, but ultimately you're still screwed if the powers that be want to screw you.