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NASA To Host Open Source Summit
PyroMosh writes "'On March 29 & 30, NASA will host its first Open Source Summit at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. This event will bring together engineers and policy makers across NASA and respected members of the open source community to discuss the challenges with the existing open source policy framework, and propose modifications that would make it easier for NASA to develop, release, and use open source software.' It's nice to see NASA keeping up the spirit of give-and-take that OSS is built around."
I am hoping NASA starts to develop software. Like the Army did in the 80's.
Mike Wrote Ping, and did a lot of work on Bind the name server. Doug Wrote the System V libc library that ran on BSD Unix. Doug's Library let us run both BSD code and Sys5 code on the same platform for the first time. There was a lot more, but this is what people may remember.
I wish congress would loosen its purse strings so that NASA can actually develop a proper functional space program. I'd like to see ATHLETE deployed on the Moon.
BTW, whatever happened to NASA's Cool Robot of the Week? It hasn't been updated since 2003!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
...is one of the worst "open source" licenses around.
From fsf.org/licenses :
" The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3, is not a free software license because it includes a provision requiring changes to be your “original creation”. Free software development depends on combining code from third parties, and the NASA license doesn't permit this.
We urge you not to use this license. In addition, if you are a United States citizen, please write to NASA and call for the use of a truly free software license."
I hope somebody at this "open source" summit will ask Nasa about changing this non-free software license.
I don't suppose many still remember when anything funded with public funds was 'open source', when NASA technology was all available to the entrepreneur, to use, to incorporate, to build upon. Computer technology was, too, in those days, the Dept. of Defense being taxpayer funded.
eugenics? disarmament? something?
Actually it would make more sense for NASA to license their software under BSD than GPL. As a taxpayer funded organization they should not be discriminating against commercial organization who are also taxpayers. That said, if you are developing software on your own time and on your own expense then of course you have the right to use whatever license you prefer, restrictive or not. I just think it changes when you are developing software at the taxpayer's expense.
It would also be more consistent with NASA's past efforts. Long ago I recall reading through catalogs of NASA developed software that was being made available to the public including commercial entities, I don't recall any restrictions.
My money is on Microsoft jumping all over this with a big embrace that "cannot be refused". And after the embrace will come a slow and painful death.
Two entities who have not accomplished anything substantial in 2 decades get together and do what?
I've always preferred the MIT/X license over BSD, it fits more nicely into source code header files and says exactly the same thing the BSD license does in four less pages.
Copyright (C) [year] by [copyright holders]
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell"
How are you expected to modify the software in any meaning sense without access to the sources?
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html ... Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations. "
"An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society (From around 2001)
I wish I could go there though, but I'm a poor open source developer... :-) It does say something about virtual participation, so maybe I can try that. Virtual is cheaper and also avoids the strip scans and/or groping required to go to CA from NY these days via "aeronautics" technology.
It is unfortunate that more people don't take the implications of abundance made possible by NASA-type technology more seriously (see also Julian Simon), or we might be able to get full body scans when we want them at the doctor's office and also not get them at airports when we don't want them (like when we are no longer worried that people hate us because we support their oppressors because everyoen is afraid there is not enough stuff or energy to go around...) See also, thanks to space age technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
Or 21st century enlightenment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://johncr8on.com/projects/21st-century-institutions/
See also the late James P. Hogan's Voyage From Yesteryear:
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
I guess no amount of fancy technology by itself can transcend irony or stupidity:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
Here are some heterodox economic solutions for our society to embrance as it transitions to greater material abundance by the sort of positive future-oriented thinking NASA does (or did?):
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
COSMIC is a software library created for NASA including programs like NASTRAN
It has NEVER been made generally available.
Start there.
http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/cosmic/
Because a commercial organization cannot profit from software under a GPL license?
Because a taxpayer funded government entity should not license its software to others using a license controlled by a non-governmental third party. That third party organization should not be able to exercise any control whatsoever on a taxpayer funded project.
A link to the Java SDK page:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/
Based on at least this project, I think they already get it...
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell"
How are you expected to modify the software in any meaning sense without access to the sources?
The text you quote was offered as an example of what appears in the source code files. :-)
The GPL is not controlled by a third party, and it certainty goes not give a third party control over a project. This is pure FUD.
The GPL was written by a third party, just as most software licences are written by lawyers rather than the developer, but this does not mean that the lawyers control the project.
see http://science.slashdot.org/story/05/04/27/1510204/NASA-Goes-SourceForge
And this was not just a toss-over-the-fence. Most of the projects on http://babelfish.arc.nasa.gov/trac/jpf are actually maintained by external collaborators, and JPF just applied for its 3rd Google Summer of Code participation. With all the domestic and international research collaborations this has been a good success story for NASA.
The GPL is not controlled by a third party, and it certainty goes not give a third party control over a project. This is pure FUD. The GPL was written by a third party, just as most software licences are written by lawyers rather than the developer, but this does not mean that the lawyers control the project.
The GPL is written by lawyers who are implementing the agenda of the FSF. Once applied the GPL exerts control in that it forces distribution of source, allows removal of DRM, requires distribution of digital signatures validating executables, etc. I am not saying these are inherently bad things, I am saying that a license that does such stuff should not be used for tax payer funded projects. Tax payers who in part paid for this software should be free to use this software in these FSF-prohibited manners.
"Actually it would make more sense for NASA to license their software under BSD than GPL. As a taxpayer funded organization they should not be discriminating against commercial organization who are also taxpayers" ..
I don't think so ...
The space shuttle is retiring and NASA has no replacement planned. This moronic Open Source summit shows how confused the agency is about its mission and how readily it wastes funds. Those in charge of this boondoggle ought to be fired.
an ill wind that blows no good
"The text you quote was offered as an example of what appears in the source code files. :-)"
Of course yes, since that's its intended use. But AFAIK, it doesn't mean it can be used for binary distribution, which was my point.
"it doesn't mean it can be used for binary distribution, which was my point."
It doesn't mean it *can't* be used for binary distribution, I meant.