Thomas Charron wrote: > How is one .gov entity different then another, in a legal sense. They are > all the United States Government.
I think no one really knows the answer to this question, but the USA Gov't is a special case in many directions. For example, the USA Gov't is legally forbidden from holding copyright. Actually, the USA Gov't has a problem *more* with proprietary software. I've met many USA Gov't employees, going back to the late 1990s, who constantly complain about the situation where one USA gov't agency funds a contractor to write software, and the contract stipulates that the contractor gets to keep the copyright (since, after all, US Gov't can't have the copyright anyway). Then, the contractor proprietarizes the software, and puts it for sale, and then *another* gov't agency buys it, so the USA taxpayer pays a proprietary software company a license fee for software the USA gov't actually developed. This is an ongoing travesty that has never been resolved. Initially, some gov't agencies were even opposed to Free Software licenses unless text could be added that said the software had to carry with it a prominent statement that US Gov't paid for the software already. Over the years, I've been able to convince a few gov't policy wonks that GPL's requirements give them sufficient recourse when contractors try these shenanigans. -- bkuhn
