Hey all, I packaged foremost, a unique data recovery/undeletion tool and started it through Extras but now I'm running into legal questions about its licensing. The summary so far: the original version of foremost was created by the US Government and hence is Public Domain. A new maintainer added code that he created and from another project that are GPL. The question: What is the license of the resultant code or is it illegal to combine it in this fashion? What follows is my last correspondence with the original, governmental author. Please let me know if you think I'm wrong in any of my thinking. On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 20:21 -0400, Jesse Kornblum wrote: > The GPL FAQ covers this: > > Source: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLUSGov > (emphasis added) > If the program is written by US government employees, it is in the > public domain, which means it is not copyrighted. Since the GNU GPL is > based on copyright, **such a program cannot be released under the GNU > GPL**. (It can still be free software, however; a public domain > program is free.) > Sorry, but foremost is public domain. The good is that nobody else can > ever copyright it! I know that may be small consolation, but that's the > way the cookie crumbles. > Interesting reading! My reading of this passage is that a US Government employee (as opposed to a contractor hired by the US Government) must release the code they create as part of their job into the public domain. I assume that Nick isn't a government employee so he can release his portion of foremost code under the GPL. These passages: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCRequiredToClaimCopyright http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCCombinePublicDomainWithGPL http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCGPLUSGovAdd add further information about the FSF's interpretation of the interaction of the GPL and Public Domain. They anticipate the case where a piece of GPL software exists and contributers add public domain code to it. The FSF assertion is that the public domain code remains public domain but the work as a whole is GPL. In our case we have software which was originally public domain and GPL code is being added to it. I'd have to query the FSF about it but I think the logical extension to the FAQ links cited is that the original public domain _code_ remains public domain but the software as a whole becomes GPL. Does that sound reasonable to you? If not, it seems impossible to contribute GPL code to foremost. However, it is possible to fork a new project under the GPL and then add the public domain code to it and release the whole as GPL leaving us with the same code-base as we have now under a new project name.
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