[License-review] Review for the NIST Software License

[Shuji Sado]

Hi,

Whether the NIST Software License operates as a copyright license depends
on two points:
(1) national treatment for foreign works (Berne art. 5(2)); and
(2) whether the jurisdiction does NOT apply the rule of the shorter term
down to the U.S. “term of 0 years” for U.S. Government employee works.

Where the shorter-term rule is applied, NIST employee-authored code can end
up with no copyright term; where it is not applied, the work may enjoy a
normal term abroad.
The former includes the EU/UK/Japan; the latter includes
Australia/Switzerland/China.

Separately, contractor-authored code assigned to the U.S. Government is a
different category and may be protected.
In any case, recognizing the NIST Software License under the OSD seems
plausible, but it would help if NIST clearly distinguished
employee-authored from contractor-authored code across its repositories.


2025/9/30 17:23 Hale, Lucas M. (Fed) via License-review <
license-review at lists.opensource.org>:

> Hi OSI reviewers!
>
>
>
> I would like to submit the National Institute of Standards and Technology
> (NIST) Software license for review to be included in your list.  This is
> the primary license that NIST staff are expected to use when releasing
> software.
>
>
>
> The license complies with the Open Source Definition, including the OSD 3,
> 5, 6 and 9 criteria.
>
>
>
> There are numerous projects using the NIST software.  For instance, there
> are 1.3K repositories at https://github.com/usnistgov that should all be
> using the license.  As such, it falls under the legacy category.
>
>
>
> The NIST license is also listed on the main NIST website
> https://www.nist.gov/open/copyright-fair-use-and-licensing-statements-srd-data-software-and-technical-series-publications,
> and has an SPDX listing https://spdx.org/licenses/NIST-Software.html.
> Under both sites, it is titled “NIST Software License”
>
>
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration!
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
>
> Lucas Hale
>
>
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-- 
Shuji Sado
Chairman, Open Source Group Japan
https://opensource.jp/
En blog: https://shujisado.org/
Ja blog: https://shujisado.com/
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