Meet the chap open-sourcing US govt code – Paul, an ex-Microsoft anti-piracy engineer

Re: Go for it!

And not only that, the basis for releasing any and all of the government software projects is that "we the people" paid for them and have a right to access, or otherwise observe, these works. No question. We own them. Not the other way around.

"though not all of it can be released, owing to national security considerations"

Unfortunate, but it should also be release after the security problems with it have elapsed.

Re: Go for it!

Really, various agencies should be tasked with producing open source software.

That sort of implies they should be software maintainers. Maybe not such a great idea. But many places already have processes based around the data ("Open Data") they release and the various APIs they provide.

Re: What license is he going for?

This is either very straightforward or nightmarishly complex. If it's the work of a US government employee, it is completely in the public domain, without even natural copyright protection. There won't be a license because there's nothing to provide a license over.*

The real challenge is that almost none of this software will have any actual federal employee involvement whatsoever, and the stuff that does will have contractors and suppliers into the mix. They definitely do have valid claims to the copyright, so the licensing decision must involve them and that's where it gets stuck. That's long before you get to the antiquated export controls nonsense.

*Strictly speaking this means a US government employee can't work with the GPL. Immovable object, unstoppable force etc.

Re: Significant legal risks of open-source software

>It took them18 months to publish their own code under the LGPL?

That depends on whether it was completely in-house project, whether they started with an already existing application and adapted it or whether multiple entities worked on the software from different projects in a collaborative fashion.

My guess it that the copyright wasn't transferred by the authors when it was being written so they had to do a code audit, find all the authors wherever they are now and ask them to sign a form before they could change the license.

Another factor was probably the issue (as mentioned in another comment) that anything produced by the US government is automatically public domain. If the government funded part of the development then that might have needed some legal checks to make sure they could actually release under GPL.

Re: Significant legal risks of open-source software

It took them18 months to publish their own code under the LGPL?

That's a reasonable investment in a business process, given it is one that others will want to learn from and emulate, perhaps Paul Berg and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) should apply for a business methods patent - making it as widely applicable as possible and then permit royalty free usage.

Re: Significant legal risks of open-source software

"Aw come on, could you please enumerate any companies currently being sued for using 'open-source' software."

You mean other than Oracle suing Google over Java in Android? ;)

Re: So with our new EWC Trump, every hostile nation is EAR99?

. Everyone else is hostile ... and therefore may be killed, abducted, detained indefinitely, tortured, have assets seized, spied upon, doxxed, at the leisure of The Glorious American God-Emperor starting all the way back to George Bush II.

The "It is only wrong when Donald Trump does it"- #IIOWWDTDI - is getting a bit tedious, assuming of course that the above behaviour towards strangers is indeed considered to be uncivilised and wrong in general.

If Not, well, one may hope that Donald Trump or his successor will apply a good dollop of what Americans believe to be good for everywhere else onto America and they can get to suck it right up and like it - and maybe understand better why "they hate us".