Re: US Govt Licensing (was licensing)

[email protected] wrote:
>>>      b)  Should you or others visitors to your site wish to use the
>>> software you developed for the Board, or any portion thereof, in their
>>> own software program, if the new software program (which integrates U.S.
>>> Government software) is ever copyrighted, it should include a
>>> publication notice indicating which portions of the program belong to 
>>> the
>>> United States Government.  According to the United States Copyright 
>>> Office
>>> (http://www.loc.gov/copyright):
> 
> Ok, so here is a question I have wondered about for some time.
> Is the following true.  Anyone has the right to copy, modify and
> republish the SW using either a proprietary or Free license.  So,
> you could copy the program. modify it in some relatively straightforward
> way, and release the result under the GPL.  How extensive would
> the modification have to be?  Would simply reformatting it with
> some different formatting conventions be sufficient, or would
> one have to really add significant value.  The first probably is
> not sufficient, but adding some functionality might be possible.

Theoretically, it's part of the public domain. All expired copyrights 
become part of the public domain. Does that mean you can republish them 
and make money on them? Do you have the right to chance Ralph Waldo 
Emerson's writings and call them your own?

I don't know the answer to that question.




> 
> For that matter, could Someone simply grab the sources and slap
> a GPL notice on them.  Then the GPL'd sources would be copyright
> Someone, though it would belong to the US Government.  The
> resulting tangle of copyright and ownership might be just enough
> to put anyone off of trying to take it private again.

That seems to depend on if someone could take it private.

Again, in theorey it belongs to the American people as in "We, the People".