Reply to post: Software is tricky

NASA advised to study up on what open source, free software, and permissive licenses actually mean

jimlux

Software is tricky

Software developed entirely by government employees is usually not copyrighted. Software developed by a NASA contractor might well be covered by copyright. Typically, what happens is that NASA gets a "limited non-exclusive government use" license. That is, NASA can use it, other government entities can use it, but the general public cannot. This comes about because NASA is saving money - they're paying to solve a NASA problem, not the general public's problem, and companies are free to charge more for a "free distribution no license" scenario.

It's also complicated by things like the Bayh-Dole Act, which says that educational institutions doing work for the government retain the intellectual property rights.

In general, though, one can get non-commercial use licenses fairly easily.

That all said, the whole area is one where there's a lot of inconsistency - and it gets muddled when you're talking about software that is the combination of multiple sources, each with different licenses. The "easy way" is to not redistribute such software - no redistribution, no worries about whether GPL applies, etc.

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