> -----Original Message----- > From: Florian Weimer [mailto:fw@deneb.enyo.de] > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 9:12 AM > To: Karan, Cem F CIV USARMY RDECOM ARL (US) <cem.f.karan.civ@mail.mil> > Cc: debian-legal@lists.debian.org > Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: Checking the ARL's scheme for releasing > software > > * Cem F. Karan: > > > The background: most works produced by the US Government (USG) do not > > have copyright attached. As a result, ARL's lawyers believe that > > licenses that rely on copyright (e.g., Apache 2.0, GPL, etc.) could be > > challenged in court, and declared invalid in toto, which means that > > the provisions of the licenses that deal with warranty, liability, > > patent issues, etc. would all of a sudden become unenforceable. To > > get around that, we'd like to use a scheme that was suggested on code.mil: > > > > 1) All code that does not have copyright attached is released under > > the Creative Commons Zero (CC0, > > Caution-https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). > > > > 2) ARL-controlled projects choose an OSI-approved license to accept > > contributions under (e.g. Apache 2.0). If a contribution has > > copyright attached, then the contributors must license the > > contribution under the OSI-approved license to the ARL. Contributions > > that have no copyright attached must be licensed to the ARL under CC0. > > (presumably, the intent is that the license extends beyond the ARL) That is the goal! If it were only licensed to ARL and we weren't permitted to redistribute it, that would completely destroy our projects. > > 3) The works are combined and distributed with a note similar to the > > following: "The portions of this work that do not have copyright > > attached are distributed under the CC0 license. The portions of this > > work that have copyright attached are distributed under the Apache 2.0 > > license." > > > > Will this scheme meet Debian's idea of Open Source software? > > I don't see any immediate problems with that from Debian's point of view. > > In the past, I think the main problem with U.S. government works was that > some agencies merely repeated the legal situation regarding > copyright in government works, and it was not very clear if those agencies > intended to pursue copyright claims abroad (perhaps even > requiring compliance with proprietary licenses). Your proposal would > completely address that issue, I think. Can you point me to where this was discussed? There are some people within the USG that need to read that conversation ASAP. Thanks, Cem Karan
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