NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 15, 2023 23:43 UTC (Wed) by dullfire (guest, #111432)
In reply to: NASA and open-source software by randomguy3
Parent article: NASA and open-source software

Yeah that confuses me to. Furthermore, I read the article to say that NASA will release software (new software, not patches) under open licenses like MIT and BSD ... but those licenses are copyright licenses... over thing which NASA can not, legally, have copyright.

It makes sense they could submit patches to BSD/MIT/GPL'd project. Those projects can totally use public domain patches. But I'm pretty sure NASA can't issue any licensing terms for their own software.

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 15, 2023 23:50 UTC (Wed) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

I know from previous things I've read that there's a caveat here - work done by companies under contract to US government agencies *can* be copyrighted, so it's possible some of the licensing refers to this.

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 16, 2023 20:29 UTC (Thu) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link] (4 responses)

I think the problem is related to derived works. Say a NASA programmer wants to modify an existing Linux kernel driver to make it work for a new Mars rover. The new driver is a derived work of the old driver, which was under the GPL. So the new driver is similarly de facto GPL code. It can be used within NASA without a problem.

However, if that new driver is released under the GPL, you have effectively released the work product of a government employee outside of the public domain.

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 16, 2023 21:14 UTC (Thu) by dullfire (guest, #111432) [Link] (2 responses)

> Say a NASA programmer wants to modify an existing Linux kernel driver to make it work for a new Mars rover. The new driver is a derived work of the old driver, which was under the GPL. So the new driver is similarly de facto GPL code.

This misunderstands what copyrights NASA would be eligible for if it was a private organization. A private organization would only have copyright on the patch they wrote. There is unlikely to be any issues with releasing the patch itself as public domain. Of course when applied to the GPL'd driver, the result is GPLd, but NASA isn't authoring the new driver, just the public domain patch.

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 16, 2023 21:22 UTC (Thu) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link] (1 responses)

A patch is often (though not always) a derived work of the parent code, is it not? Therefore a derived-work patch to copylefted code (not sure about BSD) would also have to be released under the same license.

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 17, 2023 2:22 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> would also have to be released under the same license.

Wrong. So long as the two licences are compatible, WHAT licence it is is irrelevant.

What matters is that the two different *copyrights* can be distributed together. If the licences are compatible then that's fine.

Okay, it's *discourteous* to use a different licence, but it's not a problem.

Cheers,
Wol

NASA and open-source software

Posted Feb 16, 2023 21:45 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> However, if that new driver is released under the GPL, you have effectively released the work product of a government employee outside of the public domain.

It's not a problem at all, in fact GPL explicitly allows this. You can release the driver in public domain, but it can be distributed only under GPL conditions. I.e. you can't make it private and distribute it under a commercial license.