Last week, two major events (yes, more than two) happened that caused panic and/or uproar within the United States federal government.
One relates to public service generally, and the other to how government serves through technology, and the difference that makes.
Fork in the road
The first, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to quickly whittle the federal government workforce, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management sent two million civilian employees a deferred resignation offer. The initial deadline was February 6, however, the District Court of Massachusetts granted a request to stay the deadline until February 10.
From the notice, titled Fork in the Road:
“If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program.”
Repository bureaucracy
Second, the administration began systematically modifying federal websites and removing Data.gov datasets.
While the intent behind this (removing DEI references) was the main story, the code and platforms hosting these websites were the subplot.
Git 101
Git is a tool for managing code and working with other developers on software projects. A git repository is a place where project code, change history and related documentation are housed.
The U.S. federal government hosts hundreds (thousands?) of code repositories on collaborative development platforms like GitHub and GitLab. This code could be data, applications or even an entire website.
Fork 101
A code fork is a copy of a repository. When you fork a repo, you save all of the repo’s files to your account. There, you can set it and forget it or modify for your own use.
While forking code may seem complicated, platforms make it easy, with the click of a few buttons. GitHub and GitLab have instructions on how to fork repositories on their respective platforms.
Fork the code
To fork government code is to preserve today what may not be accessible tomorrow. There’s no indication these repos won’t be deleted, but there’s also good reason to believe they might.
Citizen archivists can easily preserve this code by working together to fork as much as possible, before it’s too late. A movement to do this in a collective effort housed in a centralized organization would be a proactive way to archive millions (billions?) of dollars of technical work available to the public at large.
For example, repositories I forked within minutes include Code.gov, Data.gov, the U.S. Web Design System and Digital Services Playbook.
Note: Private repos that are forked will be deleted if the original repository is deleted. You must clone (download) these (GitHub, GitLab).
Thank you for your service
Because civil servants with true democracy technology principles made the decision to work and publish code openly, all changes made were visible to the public, which is how the media was able verify these changes.
For those of you who led – or lead – efforts to create public government repositories and openly and transparently serve the people, and those of you forking these for long-term preservation, thank you for your service.
