[License-review] Fwd: [Non-DoD Source] Resolution on NOSA 2.0

Bruce Perens bruce at perens.com
Thu Feb 22 02:12:40 UTC 2018 

For purposes of discussion, this is the 2.0 text submitted in 2013:

NASA OPEN SOURCE AGREEMENT VERSION 2.0

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NOSA Ver 2 final draft clean 2013Mar26

1/6



On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:08 PM, Geurts, Bryan A. (GSFC-1401) <
bryan.a.geurts at nasa.gov> wrote:

> Not a problem. Can you be more specific?  Any extraordinary limitations in
> 2.0 are necessitated by statute and/or regulation. Having said that,
> however, I don’t think there is anything that either is unclear or unduly
> favorable to NASA. Happy to discuss.
> Bryan
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Feb 21, 2018, at 7:49 PM, Richard Fontana <richard.fontana at opensource.
> org> wrote:
>
> Hi Bryan,
>
> My general impression in the past has been that NASA has been unwilling to
> consider making changes to NOSA 2.0. If you are willing to submit a revised
> draft that:
> * is written with a view to maximizing clarity and comprehensibility,
> particularly for individual software developers
> * takes care not to give, or have the appearance of giving, special legal
> privileges to NASA over other licensors and licensees (or else to give a
> clear justification to us of why that sort of structure is necessary) then
> I think we can make progress, perhaps rapid progress, towards approval.
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:41 PM, Geurts, Bryan A. (GSFC-1401) <
> bryan.a.geurts at nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>>
>>
>> I am just now seeing this after having been out over the long weekend, so
>> apologies for a slow response.  We at NASA are very pleased to have someone
>> finally express a willingness to work with us on certifying NOSA 2.0!
>> Apologies that I didn’t respond to Bruce’s December email, but, in looking
>> back over my emails from that period, I couldn’t find it.  Believe me, we
>> at NASA are more than ready to engage any and all interested parties in
>> order to come to a resolution; whatever you need, we will provide as
>> quickly as possible.  As you know, NASA first applied for certification
>> nearly five years ago and has been baffled by a lack of action on the part
>> of OSI ever since.  We responded to every comment from the license-review
>> group as well as from the OSI license-review coordinator (Richard Fontana),
>> but nothing has come of it so far.  In all honesty, we are now discussing
>> the need to upgrade from NOSA 2.0 to NOSA 3.0, but that’s a discussion for
>> another day, assuming we can get approval for 2.0 in short order.  Nigel
>> Tzeng at AFL (below), Cem Karan at ARL, and others have been vocal
>> advocates for NOSA 2.0 (many thanks to them) as some of the many persons
>> and organizations, in particular government organizations, in need of the
>> unique application of an open source license tailored for government
>> created works.  From a legal perspective, government works are in a
>> different category than other software because of a section of the US
>> Copyright Statute (17 USC 105), which precludes the US federal government
>> from creating works covered by a US copyright (foreign copyrights are
>> allowed, as are copyrights assigned or licensed to the government).  Since
>> copyright is the core legal theory under which open source software
>> licenses operate, special accommodations must be made if government created
>> works are to be protectable at all.  The NOSA is all about those special
>> accommodations for government works; no other OSD compliant license
>> addresses these issues.  NOSA 1.3, approved well over a decade ago, is
>> admittedly a bit klunky by today’s standards, but represents a huge step
>> forward for the times; NOSA 2.0 is several steps closer to the “mainstream”
>> OSI-approved licenses.  Both licenses were designed to be fully compliant
>> with the OSD.
>>
>>
>>
>> Please help me understand the next step forward.  We have an open source
>> legal team at NASA that wrote both NOSA 1.3 and 2.0, that meets regularly
>> and is anxious to address any concerns.  We are happy to engage by email,
>> by phone or even in person if that will move the process forward.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Bryan
>>
>>
>>
>> *Bryan A. Geurts*
>>
>> Chief Patent Counsel
>>
>> NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
>>
>> Code 140.1, 8800 Greenbelt Road
>>
>> Greenbelt, MD 20771
>>
>> Phone:  301-286-7352 <(301)%20286-7352>
>>
>> Fax:  301-286-9502 <(301)%20286-9502>
>>
>>
>>
>> This document, including any attachments, contains information that is
>> confidential, protected by the attorney-client or other privileges, or
>> constitutes non-public information.  It is intended only for the intended
>> recipients.  If you are not an intended recipient, please take appropriate
>> steps to destroy this document in its entirety and notify the sender of its
>> destruction.  Use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction of this
>> information by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful.
>>
>>
>>
>> This communication should only be used for the particular matter
>> discussed herein.  Changes in circumstances and changes in law can greatly
>> alter any current legal advice.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Tzeng, Nigel H. [mailto:Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 20, 2018 9:43 AM
>> *To:* License submissions for OSI review <license-review at lists.opensour
>> ce.org>; cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil; Geurts, Bryan A. (GSFC-1401) <
>> bryan.a.geurts at nasa.gov>
>> *Subject:* Re: [License-review] Fwd: [Non-DoD Source] Resolution on NOSA
>> 2.0
>>
>>
>>
>> Bruce,
>>
>>
>>
>> There was no reply on license review because you didn’t send it to either
>> license review or Bryan.
>>
>>
>>
>> http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.
>> opensource.org/2017-December/thread.html
>>
>>
>>
>> It’s been over FOUR YEARS since NOSA 2.0 was submitted in June of 2013.
>> Maybe you should have asked these questions in 2013 rather than 2017?
>>
>>
>>
>> In any case, according to the archive of the license-review lists from
>> November 2017 to February 2018, NASA was ignored.  If the board has
>> formally rejected the NOSA 2.0 submission in the meantime that’s just
>> awesome communication on the lists.
>>
>>
>>
>> By blocking the approval of NOSA 2.0 the OSI has blocked the fix for the
>> section that you have an issue with in v1.3 (original work of authorship
>> clause).  If you were interested in seeing that language removed then you
>> should have advocated for approval of NOSA 2.0.
>>
>>
>>
>> As I noted in License-Discuss, if one the agencies that has been forward
>> thinking and generating GOSS code for public use as part of their strategy
>> for nearly two decades under the NOSA license (https://open.nasa.gov and
>> https://code.nasa.gov ) and likely has released one of the oldest
>> GOSS/PD codebases around (https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11) believes
>> it needs to update that license then the OSI shouldn’t continue to be a
>> roadblock for improving that *already approved special purpose license *but
>> instead be helpful and *responsive*.
>>
>>
>>
>> According to Open Nasa they have:
>>
>>
>>
>>    - 39,054 Open Data Sets
>>    - 356 Open Code Repositories (155 on GitHub under the NASA account)
>>    - 41 Open APIs
>>
>>
>>
>> I think NASA has met and exceeded any “higher standard” set for Open
>> Source and Open Data advocacy and performance.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Nigel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/16/18, 4:38 PM, "License-review on behalf of Bruce Perens" <
>> license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org on behalf of bruce at perens.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I did not get any reply from NASA when I first sent this, in early
>> December.
>>
>>     Thanks
>>
>>     Bruce
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
>> Date: Fri, Dec 8, 2017, 21:39
>> Subject: Re: [License-review] [Non-DoD Source] Resolution on NOSA 2.0
>> To: License submissions for OSI review <license-review at opensource.org>, <
>> cem.f.karan.civ at mail.mil>, <bryan.a.geurts at nasa.gov>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Could you (meaning you and the board) please give us a breakdown of
>> what the issues were?
>>
>> and
>>
>>
>> > If we resubmit, will we be engaged or simply ignored, as before?
>>
>> I didn't see any public response to these questions. I am not a member of
>> the OSI board, but I am the creator of the Open Source Definition. As a
>> member of the license review committee (admission being equivalent to being
>> granted a subscription to this mailing list) I would be willing to look at
>> a new submission and make a recommendation.
>>
>>
>>
>> I think the missing piece in your previous submissions is that they were
>> not a good deal for the Open Source developer community, only a license
>> engineered to grant maximal protection to NASA. The board cited legal
>> ambiguities in their response, these are of course to the disadvantage of
>> the community. Individual developers do not have the easy access to counsel
>> and the legal budget that NASA has, and it's an even worse day for *them
>> *when they are sued. To give a personal example, my recent participation
>> in an Open-source-related lawsuit will probably exceed my year's income in
>> legal fees. So, I believe that both NASA and OSI should place the
>> individual developer's protection before that of NASA if we are all to
>> pursue Open Source fairly.
>>
>>
>>
>> In addition, the language in 1.3 that prevents combination of Open Source
>> that is not an original work of authorship of the contributor seems to me
>> to be inimical to the concept of Open Source. I would not have recommended
>> its approval. I would be especially interested in seeing a submission that
>> removed that language.
>>
>>
>>
>>     Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>>     Bruce
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
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