Intent to package proj -- coyright question

[Kirk Hilliard <kirk@ghoti.com>]

I would like to package proj, some programs and library calls to
convert between various geographic projections and coordinate
systems.  Here is a short description:

  PROJ.4 system written in ANSI-POSIX C provides three application
  programs (proj, nad2nad, and geod) as well as an easy to use library
  for use in user-written application programs.  More than 110 forward
  projections are provided and inverses are available for most (all
  commonly used ones).  NADCON datum conversion program is supplied as
  well as complete support for SPCS and several international grid
  systems.  Illustrated documentation is supplied as three PostScript
  files.

  Available at ftp site:

          kai.er.usgs.gov (128.128.40.24)

  in directory pub/PROJ.4 .  Check README in this directory for
  description of files.


This ftp site contains the file PD.projections.FAQ which lists
"Public-domain Cartographic Software" including proj, but the proj
package itself does not contain any copyright or license notice.

I am in phone and email contact with the author, Jerry Evenden, who is
now retired from the USGS.  He said that because it was published by
the US government, "of course it is public domain".  I told him that
we need something more concrete than that, and he said that he would
get in touch with the person at USGS who maintains the ftp site and
see if she could find a copyright or license notice and make it
available.

Has anyone here run into this situation with US government software
before.  It might help if we could suggest a copyright or license
notice based on some other US government published software package.


Another concern is that Jerry said that all software published by the
US government was public domain, "possible with the restriction that
you are not supposed to use it in any `life-critical' applications."
I assume that such a restriction (were it to exist) would violate
section 6 of the DFSG, "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor".
Have we run into this sort of problem before?

Kirk Hilliard


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