His position is not common and there's a long history of U.S. government lawyers approving participation in open-source projects under licenses which are not the public domain — e.g. SELinux is under the GPL because the original Linux kernel was and the NSA's lawyers approved that contribution.
The Free Software Foundation doesn't agree that the US government can release software under the GPL. From their FAQ about GNU free software licenses.
>Can the US Government release a program under the GNU GPL? (#GPLUSGov)
If the program is written by US federal government employees in the course of their employment, it is in the public domain, which means it is not copyrighted. Since the GNU GPL is based on copyright, such a program cannot be released under the GNU GPL. (It can still be free software, however; a public domain program is free.)
However, when a US federal government agency uses contractors to develop software, that is a different situation. The contract can require the contractor to release it under the GNU GPL. (GNU Ada was developed in this way.) Or the contract can assign the copyright to the government agency, which can then release the software under the GNU GPL.
Can the US Government release improvements to a GPL-covered program? (#GPLUSGovAdd)
Yes. If the improvements are written by US government employees in the course of their employment, then the improvements are in the public domain. However, the improved version, as a whole, is still covered by the GNU GPL. There is no problem in this situation.
If the US government uses contractors to do the job, then the improvements themselves can be GPL-covered.
The user space libselinux developed by the NSA is in the public domain. Which is consistent with the above. Are you sure that SELinux contribution was not released as public domain and then incorporated into the linux kernel? Something the GPL allows which the OFL license in question here does not.
I am aware of the Github issue and in fact Matthew has addressed your SELinux point in that discussion. He agrees that if the original font had been licensed under the GPL there would not be an issue here. But the language of the SIL OFL is different than (and incompatible with) the GPL, so the outcome is not automatically the same. And the OSI (the OFL licence's FSF-equivalent) takes the position that public domain and open source don't mix.
Yes, he restated his belief that the U.S. government cannot participate in non-public domain open source projects but he hasn't addressed why so many government lawyers do not share that opinion.
Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion.
Not sure how he is supposed to have addressed the "lotsa government lawyers think different" argument when no one in that thread has raised it, let alone provided any evidence of it. And again, for it to be relevant, these government lawyer opinions would need to be talking about the OFL specifically.
> Again, he has said his argument is specific to the SIL OFL and not any other license. The GPL/FSF stuff does not apply to this discussion.
His claim comes down to the U.S. government not being able to use any license which relies on copyright claims, which is not unique to OFL. This is why the government lawyers question is relevant: if he's right, that means that a bunch of other contributions shouldn't have been allowed unless the projects are public domain or dual-licensed.
> His claim comes down to the U.S. government not being able to use any license which relies on copyright claims
You haven't read his claim then, he explicitly isn't saying that. He claims only that the government can't use the OFL because of the specific demands made by the OFL which the government can't satisfy. FSF licenses don't mind public domain contributions, the same is not true of the OFL.
>Can the US Government release a program under the GNU GPL? (#GPLUSGov) If the program is written by US federal government employees in the course of their employment, it is in the public domain, which means it is not copyrighted. Since the GNU GPL is based on copyright, such a program cannot be released under the GNU GPL. (It can still be free software, however; a public domain program is free.)
However, when a US federal government agency uses contractors to develop software, that is a different situation. The contract can require the contractor to release it under the GNU GPL. (GNU Ada was developed in this way.) Or the contract can assign the copyright to the government agency, which can then release the software under the GNU GPL.
Can the US Government release improvements to a GPL-covered program? (#GPLUSGovAdd) Yes. If the improvements are written by US government employees in the course of their employment, then the improvements are in the public domain. However, the improved version, as a whole, is still covered by the GNU GPL. There is no problem in this situation.
If the US government uses contractors to do the job, then the improvements themselves can be GPL-covered.
The user space libselinux developed by the NSA is in the public domain. Which is consistent with the above. Are you sure that SELinux contribution was not released as public domain and then incorporated into the linux kernel? Something the GPL allows which the OFL license in question here does not.