This repository contains the complete Utah Code; the laws of the stateof Utah.  Its purpose is to publish the state legal code in a way thatmakes it easy for interested individuals to access both its contentand its changes over time.Another purpose for this repository is to explore some ideas aroundhow to better facilitate the legislative process.  Legislation comesin the form of bills which are essentially patches to the existinglegal code.  Many different versions of a patch may float around to bedebated, discussed, amended, etc., before a final version is appliedto the "trunk".  The process is extremely similar to how developersmanage software changes, particularly in the open source world.I think it would be very cool if something like github were used tomanage the actual law, all in the open and fully visible to everyone.I imagine the official code as sort of a master repository.  Eachlegislator could fork this repository and hack on his own copy.Legislators could pull from one another as they massage the languageto get it right.  The House and Senate would each have their ownforks, as would the committees.  The governor, too would have a forkof the official repository.The legislative process would then be fully visible to anyone whocares to look.  Congressman Blowhard commits a change to his code andpushes it to the public fork.  Congressman Slick looks at it, likesit, pulls, commits a change and tells Blowhard about his change, etc.Eventually, the bill makes it to committee, and the committee may haveseveral branches indicating the status of bills as they progressthrough the committee.  Eventually, if the bill is voted forpresentation to the House, it is pulled into the committee's "trunk".If the House votes to approve the bill, then it's pulled to theHouse's trunk, available to be pulled by the Senate.  The Senate canmake its own modifications, and perhaps the result must pass through aHouse/Senate reconciliation committee, before being pushed to the"Passed" branch (or fork), with a message to the governor.Anyway, that's the idea.  It may seem kind of silly, but if you'veever actually tried to track the progress of a bill through theexisting web interfaces, it's horribly difficult, and there's a lot ofinformation about the bill's movement through the process that simplyisn't available.  I think using revision management tools just mightmake the whole process both easier and more transparent.And that's what I want to play with.