Public domain software is not open-source?

[Alexander Terekhov]

Quoting Rick Mohe (rick at linuxmafia.com):

> Er, that was supposed to be "escheat".  Clearly, I need my coffee.  (The
> escheat laws are those that ensure that lost/abandoned property
> eventually reaches some appropriate owner, if only the state.)

In the 108th Congress, there was an effort (H.R. 2613) to extend 17
USC 105 ("Copyright protection under this title is not available for
any work of the United States Government ...") to works produced under
government contracts.  "Copyright protection under this title is not
available for any work produced pursuant to scientific research
substantially funded by the Federal Government ..." The idea behind
the legislation was to make medical research reports more generally
available.

It is interesting to ponder what that might do to GPLed [and other
open source copyright licensed] software written in universities under
federal grants and contracts.  But to the best of my knowledge, there
was no recognition of that problem by any of the "free" software
people.

End quoting Lee Hollaar.

regards,
alexander.

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 01/22/2008 ORDER TO EXTEND TIME FOR DEFENDANT...
 02/19/2008 ORDER TO EXTEND TIME FOR DEFENDAT(sic)...
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