The US Department Of Defense Announces An Open Source Code Repository (defense.gov)

"The Pentagon is the latest government entity to join the open-source movement," writes NextGov. An anonymous reader quotes their report: The Defense Department this week launched Code.mil, a public site that will eventually showcase unclassified code written by federal employees. Citizens will be able to use that code for personal and public projects... The Defense Department's Digital Service team, whose members are recruited for short-term stints from companies including Google and Netflix, will be the first to host its code on the site once the agreement is finalized... "This is a direct avenue for the department to tap into a worldwide community of developers to collectively speed up and strengthen the software development process," a DOD post announcing the initiative said. The Pentagon also aims to find software developers and "make connections in support of DOD programs that ultimately service our national security."
Interestingly, there's no copyright protections on code written by federal employees, according to U.S. (and some international) laws, according to the site. "This can make it hard to attach an open source license to our code, and our team here at Defense Digital Service wants to find a solution. You can submit a public comment by opening a GitHub issue on this repository before we finalize the agreement at the end of March."

Comments

What's wrong with public domain code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman may argue that you need to make sure the code is free in the future, but I'd settle for the code being free now.

Re:What's wrong with public domain code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman's approach, especially with the newer AGPL versions makes sense if you are a company. You know that if your rivals start to use your code, then you get back their improvements. However I don't think that's enough here.

Who's thinking of the source code rights of the targets? You are flying along in an SU-34, innocently bombing Turkmen babies and you get blown up without even knowing that the code that killed you or having the right to suggest improvements and fixes. I want to suggest a new AAGPL where, in jets with a compatible glass cockpit or Head Up Display a message will pop up:

You have been targeted by an ARAM-72 missile running the latest Air Air Respose AARA (AARA) code. This code in this missile is licensed under the GNU AAGPL license (Air to Air General Public License). Unlike other Military licenses which attempt to kill you without warning, this license is designed to ensure your Freedom under attack. Do you want to:

• a) check out the source code from Savannah and start editing in Emacs using an eye controlled keyboard.
• b) attempt futile evasive manoeuvres (this will wish you luck and return you to flight command mode).
• c) eject (n.b. please check the bugs list; you may have to patch first for compatibility with your hardware).

A full copy of the AAGPL software license should be found just behind the explosive charge of the missile targeting you. If you did not receive it or wish to read it before impact then please download it from the Free Military Software Foundation website (http://fmsf.org).

Only once we have this will we truly have Free Military Software. Hostile governments will work together, like competing corporations united by the AGPL, delivering the best possible experience for all their Targets.

Re:What's wrong with public domain code?

[swillden]

Stallman may argue that you need to make sure the code is free in the future, but I'd settle for the code being free now.

I don't see any reason they shouldn't do both. They should release it under a good copyleft license, but note on their repository that all source code from the DoD is in the public domain. Those who wish to take the federal code and carefully verify that no non-federal contributions have been added (or who are willing to strip out all of the non-federal code) can use it in whatever way they like, since it's in the public domain. Contributions by others, however, will by default be owned by the contributor but licensed under the copyleft license. In the event someone uses their code in a way that violates the license, they'll have standing to sue for infringement, though the DoD will not.

Re:Are our lawyers really this clueless?

[Anubis IV]

I'm willing to accept that it probably can't be copyrighted.

That doesn't mean you can't put a license on it. And there are plenty of licenses to choose from. One must be pretty close to suitable.

There's neither a need for a license, nor would a license have any meaning in this context. The whole purpose of a license is to disclaim or enumerate the rights being retained by the copyright holder. If the works belongs to the public domain, a license has no meaning and any attempt to attach a license would be an attempt to (fraudulently) assert rights that only belong to the owner of the material, of which there is none.

Setting those concerns aside, there are a few licenses that approximate to varying degrees the rights provided by public domain works (e.g. MIT or BSD), but attaching them to these documents to describe the rights of users would be like saying that the UN charter is the official document Americans should use to understand their right to free speech, rather than the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The laws regarding works in the public domain would still be the governing rules here, rather than whatever license they attached, so it makes no sense to attach a license in the first place.