That's an interesting angle to bite on... Does the US government grant itself patents, and if so, what does it do with those patents? On 3 May 2014 06:45, "Richard Fontana" <font...@sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 02 May 2014 14:55:55 -0500 > Karl Fogel <kfo...@red-bean.com> wrote: > > > This thread on GitHub gets (needlessly?) complicated. It's about a > > public-domain software work put out by the U.S. government, and > > there's no clarity on whether calling it "open source" and citing the > > OSI's definition of the term would be appropriate: > > > > https://github.com/ngageoint/geoevents/issues/2#issuecomment-41739913 > > > > Someone cites our FAQ item on it (which, as its primary author, I > > found tickled my vanity :-) ), but really, I wish they didn't have to > > cite the OSI FAQ and could instead just say "yup, public domain is > > open source". > > > > The things we don't like about public domain (lack of explicit > > liability limitation, different definitions in different > > jurisdictions) are not in themselves counter to the OSD, after all. > > > > Thoughts? Should OSI look for a route to say that public domain works > > (like ones put out by the U.S. government) are open source too, or is > > it just too problematic? > > This work's authors seem to explicitly say that they are dedicating it > to the public domain, not merely (or explicitly at all, as far as > I can see here) relying on the notion of statutory public domain for > US government works. I'd argue those are two different concepts of > "public domain" (one of which is really something more akin to the > effect achieved by CC0). > > With statutory public domain works, you can't be sure out of context > what the status of the work is when published outside the US. See e.g. > http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317. I've found > that many US government lawyers dealing with open source seem to assume > that 17 USC 105 operates worldwide (this sometimes comes up in the form > of a refusal to sign CLAs because 'there is no copyright to license'). > > Also with statutory public domain works you have the same old MXM/CC0 > inconsistency problem in a different form. Consider the case of public > domain source code created by a US government employee, having features > covered by a patent held by the US government. > > - RF > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@opensource.org > http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss >
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