The NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) is an OSI-approved

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both sourc ...

. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding ...

(NASA) releases some

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

(such as

NASA World Wind NASA WorldWind is an open-source (released under the NOSA license and the Apache 2.0 license) virtual globe. According to the website (https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/), "WorldWind is an open source virtual globe API. WorldWind allows ...

) under this license.

Legislation and NASA policy

Publication of open source software fits in with Agency functions outlined under the

National Aeronautics and Space Act The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 () is the United States federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Act, which followed close on the heels of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, was d ...

, that is, to "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." The NOSA was a point of discussion for NASA's Open Source Summit in March 2011.

Reception

NOSA 1.3 has been approved as an

open source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compan ...

by the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

(OSI). The

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ( ...

, however, raises issue with the following clause:

G. Each Contributor represents that its Modification is believed to be Contributor's original creation and does not violate any existing agreements, regulations, statutes or rules, and further that Contributor has sufficient rights to grant the rights conveyed by this Agreement.

The FSF states that "free software development depends on combining code from third parties", and because of this requirement that changes must be "original creation" the license is not a

free software licence A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...

. In 2018 a consensus study report of the

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (also known as NASEM or the National Academies) are the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name is used interchangeably in two senses: (1) as an umbrell ...

acknowledged that uncertainties about the interpretation of the license served as "a barrier to contributing to NOSA-licensed software."

References

{{reflist

External links

Text of the NASA Open Source Software Agreement in various formats

Ames Research Center open source software

Goddard Spaceflight Center open source software

NOSA explained (with examples)
Free and open-source software licenses NASA online

Legislation and NASA policy

Reception

See also

References

External links