| 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. |