And if we started treating behavior like this as equivalent to the search for bug bounties, we could iteratively patch the law until it is no longer cost-effective to search for them.
This. I was working with a startup and on my first day onsite, I was sat next to the company lawyer. He told me he had just finished up a contract that was riddled with landmines. He seemed so proud of himself.
At a later point when renegotiating, I was given one of these dangerous contracts to sign. When I brought to light my concerns, said lawyer set up a face to face with me. His first words were, "If you weren't an engineer, you would have made a good lawyer."
Somewhat jokingly, somewhat seriously: I wish that laws and changes to them were organized and published like repos and pull requests on github.
It'd be such a lead forward in transparency if 'bugs' (loopholes), authors, and proposed changes were out in the open -- and the history and reasoning behind them equally public.
In theory I think this is the way many countries legal systems already work: the case law and regulations are technically public. But it's generally only accessible (in both the sense of retrieval, and also in the sense of understanding the language) to subject experts.
DevX101|6 years ago
distantaidenn|6 years ago
At a later point when renegotiating, I was given one of these dangerous contracts to sign. When I brought to light my concerns, said lawyer set up a face to face with me. His first words were, "If you weren't an engineer, you would have made a good lawyer."
Boggles the mind.
jka|6 years ago
It'd be such a lead forward in transparency if 'bugs' (loopholes), authors, and proposed changes were out in the open -- and the history and reasoning behind them equally public.
In theory I think this is the way many countries legal systems already work: the case law and regulations are technically public. But it's generally only accessible (in both the sense of retrieval, and also in the sense of understanding the language) to subject experts.