[izakage]

I am curious about GPL compatibility in this situation. According to [1], software developed by US federal government cannot be licensed under the GPL since it is automatically in the public domain. However, the github repo readme makes the following claim:

"The project utilizes code licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and therefore is licensed under GPL v2 or later."

While I applaud this effort and wish to see more like it in the future, is there a possible issue with licensing here?

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#GP...

[zach]

The way USA.gov puts it, government works are "not subject to copyright" or restrictions thereof, which I think explains the situation better.

I am having a hard time finding a model for (or even discussion about) what happens when government works have been derived from copyrighted material. Anyone know of another example?

But I'm assuming that since there is no copyright to the additions, from a copyright point of view it's essentially equivalent to the software from which it's derived.

[eco]

Seems like it matches the situation of wanting to release your additions to a GPL codebase into the public domain. Doing that is perfectly fine[1]. It feels like a hole in the GPL for some reason though.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#RequiredToClaimCop...

[SoftwareMaven]

This was exactly my question. How can they put limitations on public domain code?

[cdibona]

So obviously I don't work for the white house, but I suspect that since this code depends on bits of gpl'd code to function, they made the entire project licensed similarly.

Also, it is not as simple as you think, government code isn't always pd. If written by a contractor, the contractor/contracting organization can decide to not release code/work to the public.

Finally, if this code was written by Macon's team, and not by contractors, then you could maybe make an argument that the parts of the code that came from original gpl parts would be gpl'd, but not the code written by the wh team that doesn't depend on the gpl'd parts, as the code isn't distributed to end users the way the gpl mandates sharing.

Anyhow, I'm trying to simplify a lot here, but thought I'd chime in.

[dllthomas]

They can't, but only part of the code is public domain. If you want to use the whole pile of it, you do so under the GPL - if you pick out the changes made by the govt, then you can apply those elsewhere.

[mmahemoff]

So effectively GPL imposes a dual (or multiple) license on the non-GPL part.

[dllthomas]

Insofar as the non-GPL part is specific to the GPL code, yes. If you reimplement the GPL code under a different license, you could reuse the public domain bits. I expect in most cases, it wouldn't be terribly worthwhile.