<div dir="ltr">Code written by Govt. employees is 'Public Domain', meaning specifically exempted from copyright. <div><br></div><div>However, most? government software is written by contractors, and not published or shared. I don't know for sure, but I imagine that a large amount of that work is under a proprietary license. I think it's a giant step in the right direction to get the Govt. to publish, and reuse (our) software because we are paying for it once already. However, I think that the primary beneficiaries will be the software ISVs and VARs that will essentially have another 'github' of govt. software to grab and bring in-house. The same problem is reflected at GitHub where the majority of new projects are selecting non-free licenses now whereas a few years ago GPL was the most popular license in the world.</div><div><br></div><div>See <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html</a><br></div><div>See license list at <a href="https://github.com/new">https://github.com/new</a><br></div><div>See global license popularity at <a href="https://www.blackducksoftware.com/resources/data/top-20-open-source-licenses">https://www.blackducksoftware.com/resources/data/top-20-open-source-licenses</a> (their data may be skewed or unreliable)</div><div>Also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government</a><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Greg Rundlett<div><div><a href="https://eQuality-Tech.com" target="_blank">https://eQuality-Tech.com</a></div></div><div><a href="https://freephile.org" target="_blank">https://freephile.org</a></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 4:24 PM, Mark Komarinski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mkomarinski@wayga.org" target="_blank">mkomarinski@wayga.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>I was under the impression that code written by the government was public domain. You and I (and private companies) paid the taxes that generated that code, so releasing it in anything less than a public domain is doing a disservice.<div><br></div><div>Back when I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs there were companies that took the VA code, modified it for non-VA hospitals, and offered to provide the software and support for a fee. I didn't find a problem with it then, nor do I now. That's what public domain means.</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>-Mark</div></font></span><div><div class="h5"><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: "Greg Rundlett (freephile)" <<a href="mailto:greg@freephile.com" target="_blank">greg@freephile.com</a>> </div><div>Date: 3/25/16 3:33 PM (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: blu <<a href="mailto:discuss@blu.org" target="_blank">discuss@blu.org</a>>, GNHLUG <<a href="mailto:gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org" target="_blank">gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org</a>> </div><div>Subject: Govt Source Code Policy </div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr"><div>The US Fed. Govt. is proposing a pilot program to release at least 20% of newly developed custom code as 'OSS'. <a href="https://sourcecode.cio.gov/" target="_blank">https://sourcecode.cio.gov/</a> They're accepting comments now. And since it's hosted on GitHub, you "comment" via the issue queue, and you can also fork the project and issue a pull request.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I forked it and created a pull request. <a href="https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/pulls" target="_blank">https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/pulls</a> proposing to use the term 'Free Software' in place of 'Open Source' </div><div><br></div><div>If the government actually goes through with 'open sourcing' their work, it's actually a giant corporate handout because companies will have greater access to publicly funded works that they can then incorporate into proprietary works.</div><div><br></div><div>What do you think?</div><div><br></div><br clear="all"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Greg Rundlett<div><div><a href="https://eQuality-Tech.com" target="_blank">https://eQuality-Tech.com</a></div></div><div><a href="https://freephile.org" target="_blank">https://freephile.org</a></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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