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

[Tzeng, Nigel H.]

I’m not NASA but given the ESA resubmission I’ll make comments as a NOSA license user and a former NOSA community project contributor in red.

These opinions are mine and not necessarily that of my employer.

On 2/22/18, 1:41 PM, "License-review on behalf of Bruce Perens" <license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org<mailto:license-review-bounces at lists.opensource.org> on behalf of bruce at perens.com<mailto:bruce at perens.com>> wrote:

Here is my second pass at marking up the NASA license 2.0 . It's only different from the first in a few comments.

NASA OPEN SOURCE AGREEMENT VERSION 2.0

This open source agreement (“Agreement”) defines the rights of use, reproduction, modification and redistribution of certain software
released by the United States Government (“Government”) as represented by the Government Agency listed below (“Government Agency”).

Although I would not actually recommend that any entity other than the United States Government make use of this license, it doesn't make sense to have a license that requires that the project be originated by only one legal entity, the United States Government. Should OSI then accept licenses that require the project to be originated by Canada and 210 other nations, and by IBM and a large number of other corporations? It wouldn't make sense for OSI or the developer community. I think you can make this text work for the government or another contributor without losing any of the legal protection you wish to have.
This is a special purpose license for the USG just like the ESA licenses are special purpose licenses for the ESA.  It replaces NOSA 1.3 so there is no proliferation issue.
Note that the ESA license has specific reporting responsibilities to the ESA in section 7.1.  It’s not likely to be re-used even by other NGO entities of the EU.
So yes, the OSI should approve both under the special purpose license category but in the case of NOSA there is zero proliferation issue.
The United States Government, as represented by Government Agency, is an intended third-party beneficiary of all subsequent redistributions of the Subject Software.

Please explain what "intended third-party beneficiary" means in this context. Why is it necessary for the U.S. Government to be this beneficiary, rather than all of the contributors?

NOSA projects have been fairly large software releases from NASA and NASA is the primary contributor and NOSA projects are controlled by NASA.  As such they probably wish to call out that they are an intended beneficiary.  Doesn’t seem necessary but doesn’t seem to hurt anything either.

…

F. “Original Software” means the software first released under this Agreement by Government Agency with the Government Agency designation and title listed above, including source code, object code and accompanying documentation, if any.

I think "Initial Work" is less confusing. Other licenses use that term. Also, this definition is exclusive to Government and I don't see that this is necessary simply to define an initial work.

As noted above NOSA Projects are projects initially released by NASA (or other USG entities).  The projects are usually cathedral in nature.

C. Under Patent Rights:  Subject to, and, so long as You comply with, the terms and conditions of this Agreement, each Contributor hereby grants to You (with respect to the Subject Software and its Contributions to or Derivative Works of the Subject Software) and You grant to each recipient (with respect to Your Contributions to and Derivative Works of the Subject Software, as defined in Paragraphs 1.B and 1.C) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in Paragraphs 3.J and 5.A) license with respect to its Covered Patents to make, have made, use, redistribute, reproduce, sell, offer to sell, import, sublicense and otherwise transfer the Subject Software.
This is the strong patent clause. See Larry's comments at https://www.rosenlaw.com/lj9.htm
NOSA project adoption doesn’t impact wider FOSS adoption as it is a special purpose license largely used only by NASA and perhaps by other USG agencies for USG created projects.
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