A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.. Running shoes. BPC-157. If there are reviewers from many different backgrounds (e.g., different countries), this can also reduce certain risks. 1342 the Attorney General drew a distinction that the Comptroller of the Treasury thereafter adopted, and that GAO and the Justice Department continue to follow to this daythe distinction between voluntary services and gratuitous services. Some key text from this opinion, as identified by the red book, are: [I]t seems plain that the words voluntary service were not intended to be synonymous with gratuitous service it is evident that the evil at which Congress was aiming was not appointment or employment for authorized services without compensation, but the acceptance of unauthorized services not intended or agreed to be gratuitous and therefore likely to afford a basis for a future claim upon Congress. 31 U.S.C. As far as I have heard, unless you are a programmer then you aren't getting any actual development software. The DoD already uses a wide variety of software licensed under the GPL. Air Force - (618)-229-6976, DSN 779. Q: Where can I release open source software that are new projects to the public? OGOTS/GOSS software is often not OSS; software is only OSS if it meets the definition of OSS. Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. As noted by the OSJTF definition for open systems, be sure to test such systems with more than one web browser (e.g., Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox), to reduce the risk of vendor lock-in. Below are current coronavirus disease 2019 statistics for Department of Air Force personnel: *These numbers include all of the cases that were reported since our last update on Jan. 18. Commercial software (both proprietary and OSS) is occasionally updated to fix errors (including security vulnerabilities), and your system should be designed so that it is relatively easy to accept these updates. Q: Is there a name for software whose source code is publicly available, but does not meet the definition of open source software? The Defense Information Systems Agency maintains the DOD Information Network (DODIN) Approved Products List (APL) process, as outlined in DOD Instruction 8100.04 on behalf of the Department of Defense. If this is the case, then the contractor cannot release the software as OSS without permission, because the contractor doesnt own the copyright. View the complete AFI 36-2903 for more details. The products listed below are evaluated against a NIAP-approved Protection Profile, which encompasses the security requirements and test activities suitable across the technology with no EAL assigned - hence the conformance claim is "PP". As stated in FAR 25.103 Exceptions item (e), The restriction on purchasing foreign end products does not apply to the acquisition of information technology that is a commercial item, when using fiscal year 2004 or subsequent fiscal year funds (Section 535(a) of Division F, Title V, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004, and similar sections in subsequent appropriations acts).. Users can send bug reports to the distributor or trusted repository, just as they could for a proprietary program. CCRA Certificate. Q: Is there a large risk to DoD contractors that widely-used OSS violates enforceable software patents? Most OSS projects have a trusted repository, that is, some (web) location where people can get the official version of the program, as well as related information (documentation, bug report system, mailing lists, etc.). In particular, U.S. law (10 USC 2377) requires a preference for commercial products for procurement of supplies or services. Q: Under what conditions can GPL-licensed software be mixed with proprietary/classified software? If you have concerns about using in-house staff, augmented by the OSS community for those components, then select and pay a commercial organization to provide the necessary support. Permissive: These licenses permit the software to become proprietary (i.e., not OSS). Resources for further information include: In brief, the MIT and 2-clause BSD license are dominated by the 3-clause BSD license, which are all dominated by the LGPL licenses, which are all dominated by the GPL licenses. These licenses include the MIT license, revised BSD license (and its 2-clause variant), the Apache 2.0 license, the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) versions 2.1 or 3, and the GNU General Public License (GPL) versions 2 or 3. Q: Has the U.S. government released OSS projects or improvements? More Mobile Apps. Direct deposit form. Distribution Mixing GPL and other software can be stored and transmitted together. This memo is available at, The Open Technology Development Roadmap was released by the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts, on 7 Jun 2006. There is a fee for registering a trademark. Yes. The terms that apply to usage and redistribution tend to be trivially easy to meet (e.g., you must not remove the license or author credits when re-distributing the software). If the standard DFARS contract clauses are used (see DFARS 252.227-7014), then unless other arrangements are made, the government has unlimited rights to a software component when (1) it pays entirely for the development of it (see DFARS 252.227-7014(b)(1)(i)), or (2) it is five years after contract signature if it partly paid for its development (see DFARS 252.227-7014(b)(2)). In some cases a DoD contractor may be required to transfer copyright to the government for works produced under contract (see DFARS 252.227-7020). Yes, but the following considerations apply: As stated above, software developed by government employees as part of their official duties is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. The U.S. has granted a large number of software patents, making it difficult and costly to examine all of them. But in practice, publicly-released OSS nearly always meets the various government definitions for commercial computer software and thus is nearly always considered commercial software. The public release of the item is not restricted by other law or regulation, such as the Export Administration Regulations or the International Traffic in Arms Regulation, and the item qualifies for Distribution Statement A, per DoD Directive 5230.24 (reference (i)).". However, using a support vendor is not the only approach or the best approach in all cases; system/program managers and DAAs must look at the specific situation to make a determination. This list was generated on Friday, March 3, 2023, at 5:54 PM. Some OSS is very secure, while others are not; some proprietary software is very secure, while others are not. Recent rulings have strengthened the requirement for non-obviousness, which probably renders unenforceable some already-granted software patents, but at this time it is difficult to determine which ones are affected. The certification affirms that the Air Force OTI is authorized to use ASTi's products, which now appear in the OTI Evaluated/Approved Products List (OTI E/APL). The related FAR 52.227-2 (Notice and Assistance Regarding Patent and Copyright Infringement), as prescribed by FAR 27.201-2(b), requires the contractor to report to the Contracting Officer each notice or claim of patent/copyright infrigement in reasonable written detail. In most cases, contributors to OSS projects intend for their contributions to be gratuitous, and provide them for all (not just for the Federal government), clearly distinguishing such OSS contributions from the voluntary services that the ADA was designed to prevent. Contractors for other federal agencies may have a different process to use, but after going through a process they can often release such software as open source software. Q: When can the U.S. federal government or its contractors publicly release, as OSS, software developed with government funds? However, sometimes OGOTS/GOSS software is later released as OSS. Spouse's information if you have one. Adobe Acrobat Reader software is copyrighted software which gives users instant access to documents in their original form, independent of computer platform. 1.1.3. The use of commercial products is generally encouraged, and when there are commercial products, the government expects that it will normally use whatever license is offered to the public. Anyone who is considering this approach should obtain a determination from general counsel first (and please let the FAQ authors know!). ), (See also GPL FAQ, Question Can the US Government release a program under the GNU GPL?). DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE HEADQUARTERS AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND GUARDIANS OF THE HIGH FRONTIER. For example, a Code Analysis of the Linux Wireless Teams ath5k Driver found no license problems. This makes the expectations clear to all parties, which may be especially important as personnel change. 1342, Limitation on voluntary services, US Government Accountability Office (GAO) Office of the General Counsels Principles of Federal Appropriations Law (aka the Red Book), the 1982 decision B-204326 by the U.S. Comptroller General, How to Evaluate Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) Programs, Capgeminis Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM), Top Tips For Selecting Open Source Software, Open Source memo doesnt mandate a support vendor (by David Perera, FierceGovernmentIT, May 23, 2012), Code Analysis of the Linux Wireless Teams ath5k Driver, DFARS subpart 227.70infringement claims, licenses, and assignments, Prior Art and Its Uses: A Primer, by Theodore C. McCullough, this NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) project became a top level open source Apache Software Foundation project in 2011, Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS), Publicly Releasing Open Source Software Developed for the U.S. Government, CENDIs Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright, GPL FAQ, Question Can the US Government release a program under the GNU GPL?, Free Software Foundation License List, Public Domain, GPL FAQ, Question Can the US Government release improvements to a GPL-covered program?, Publicly Releasing Open Source Software Developed for the U.S. Government by Dr.David A. Wheeler, DoD Software Tech News, February 2011, U.S. Code Title 41, Chapter 7, Section 103, follow standard source installation release practices, Open Source Software license by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), Free Software license by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Many view OSS license proliferation as a problem, Serdar Yegulalps 2008 Open Source Licensing Implosion (InformationWeek), Open Source Initiative (OSI) maintains a list of Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities, licenses accepted by the Google code hosting service, Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project by Karl Fogel, Open Technology Development (OTD): Lessons Learned & Best Practices for Military Software, Recognizing and Avoiding Common Open Source Community Pitfalls, Releasing Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) for Source Installation, GNU Coding Standards, especially on the release process, Wikipedias Comparison of OSS hosting facilities page, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) page Trademark basics, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) page Should I register my mark?, Open Technology Development Lessons Learned, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Government Open-Source Software (GOSS) Handbook for Govies, Military - Open Source Software (MIL-OSS) DoD/IC discussion list, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil, Open source software licenses are reviewed and approved as conforming to the, In practice, an open source software license must also meet the, Fedora reviews licenses and publishes a list of, The Department of Navy CIO issued a memorandum with guidance on open source software on 5 Jun 2007. - The award authority will establish the maximum award nomination length (number of . CJC-1295 DAC. Feb. 4, 2022 |. However, if the goal is to encourage longevity and cost savings through a commonly-maintained library or application, protective licenses may have some advantages, because they encourage developers to contribute their improvements back into a single common project. Other laws must still be obeyed. If the OSS is intended for use on Linux/Unix systems, follow standard source installation release practices so that it is easier for users to install. Adobe Acrobat Reader. Where possible, it may be better to divide such components into smaller components in a way that avoids this issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. This definition is essentially identical to what the DoD has been using since publication of the 16 October 2009 memorandum from the DoD CIO, Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS). Patents expire after 20 years, so any idea (invention) implemented in software publicly available for more than 20 years should not, in theory, be patentable. Various organizations have been formed to reduce patent risks for OSS. It noted that a copyright holder may dedicate a certain work to free public use and yet enforce an open source copyright license to control the future distribution and modification of that work Open source licensing has become a widely used method of creative collaboration that serves to advance the arts and sciences in a manner and at a pace that few could have imagined just a few decades ago Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md. This is not uncommon. Q: Can the government or contractor use trademarks, service marks, and/or certification marks with OSS projects? This is not merely theoretical; in 2003 the Linux kernel development process resisted an attack. It is available at, The Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum providing guidance on software acquisition which specifically addressed open source software on 1 Jul 2004. As explained in detail below, nearly all OSS is commercial computer software as defined in US law and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, and if it used unchanged (or with only minor changes), it is almost always COTS. Similarly, OSS (as well as proprietary software) may indeed have malicious code embedded in it. This risk is mitigated by reviewing software (in particular, for classification and export control issues) before public release. By August 1941, American president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill had drafted the Atlantic Charter to define goals for the post-war world. Another useful source is the list of licenses accepted by the Google code hosting service. disa.meade.ie.list.approved-products-certification-office@mail.mil. The release of the software may be restricted by the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) or Export Administration Regulation (EAR). 1342, Limitation on voluntary services. You will need a Common Access Card (CAC) with DoD Certificates to access DoD Cyber Exchange NIPR. Choose a widely-used existing license; do not create a new license. when it implements novel functionality which is not already available to the public, and which significantly improves DoD mission outcomes or business processes. When the software is already deployed, does the project develop and deploy fixes? Q: How can I avoid failure to comply with an OSS license? U.S. law governing federal procurement U.S. Code Title 41, Section 103 defines commercial product as including a product, other than real property, that (A) is of a type customarily used by the general public or by nongovernmental entities for purposes other than governmental purposes; and (B) has been sold, leased, or licensed, or offered for sale, lease, or license, to the general public. All new software products must go through the systems change request approval process and complete a satisfactory risk assessment. Q: How should I create an open source software project? Atty Gen.51 (1913)) that has become the leading case construing 31 U.S.C. It is important to understand that open source software is commercial software, because there are many laws, regulations, policies, and so on regarding commercial software. Releasing software as OSS does not mean that organizations will automatically arise to help develop/support it. This does not mean that existing OSS elements should always be chosen, but it means that they must be considered. Indeed, vulnerability databases such as CVE make it clear that merely hiding source code does not counter attacks: Hiding source code does inhibit the ability of third parties to respond to vulnerabilities (because changing software is more difficult without the source code), but this is obviously not a security advantage. If the intent of a contract is to develop software to be released as open source software, it is best to expressly include release as OSS as part of the contract. In most cases, yes. Since OSS licenses are quite generous, the only license-violating actions a developer is likely to try is to release software under a more stringent license and those will have little effect if they cannot be enforced in court. These definitions in U.S. law govern U.S. acquisition regulations, namely the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS). For example, software that can only be used for government purposes is not OSS, since it cannot be used for any purpose. If a legal method for using the GPL software for a particular application cannot be devised, and a different license cannot be negotiated, then the GPL-licensed component cannot be used for that particular purpose. And of course, individual OSS projects often have security review processes or methods (such as Mozillas bounty system). The list of products, referred to as "Blue sUAS," come from 5 different manufacturers: Skydio, Parrot, Altavian, Teal Drones, and Vantage Robotics. - White space on the right margin of a populated AF Form 1206 is both accepted and expected; white space will not be an indicator of quality. But what is radically different is that a user can actually make a change to the program itself (either directly, or by hiring someone to do it). If the contractor was required to transfer copyright to the government for works produced under contract (e.g., because the FAR 52.227-17 or DFARS 252.227-7020 clauses apply to it), then the government can release the software as open source software, because the government owns the copyright. Perhaps more importantly, by forcing there to be an implementation that others can examine in detail, resulting in better specifications that are more likely to be used. The release of the software may be restricted by the International Traffic in Arms Regulation or Export Administration Regulation. Q: What are the major types of open source software licenses? These services must be genuinely generic in the sense that the applications that use them must not depend on the detailed design of the GPL software to work. . can be competed, and the cost of some improvements may be borne by other users of the software. Choose a GPL-compatible license. Software licenses (including OSS licenses) may also involve the laws for patent, trademark, and trade secrets, in addition to copyright. As long as a GPL program does not embed GPL software into its outputs, a GPL program can process classified/proprietary information without question. As noted above, in software, Open Source refers to software for which the human-readable source code is available for use, study, re-use, modification, enhancement, and re-distribution by the users of such software. Yes. OpenSSL - SSL/cryptographic library implementation, GNAT - Ada compiler suite (technically this is part of gcc), perl, Python, PHP, Ruby - Scripting languages, Samba - Windows - Unix/Linux interoperability. REFERENCES: (a) AFI 33-210, "Air Force Certification and Accreditation (C&A) Look at the Numbers! Many DoD capabilities are accessible via web browsers using open standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML; in such cases, it is relatively easy to use or switch to open source software implementations (since the platforms used to implement the client or server become less relevant). Unfortunately, the government must pay for all development and maintenance costs of GOTS; since these can be substantial, GOTS runs the risk of becoming obsolete when the government cannot afford those costs. In addition, since the source code is publicly released, anyone can review it, including for the possibility of malicious code. So if the program is being used and not modified (a very common case), this additional term has no impact. The world's number-one enterprise cloud gives the DoD the power to capture, analyze, and retrieve important information quickly . For the DoD, the risks of failing to consider the use of OSS where appropriate are of increased cost, increased schedule, and/or reduced performance (including reduced innovation or security) to the DoD due to the failure to use the commercial software that best meets the needs (when that is the case). The CBP ruling points out that 19 U.S.C. In contracts where this issue is important, you should examine the contract to find the specific definitions that are being used.
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