{"id":"NASA-1.3","title":"NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/opensource/nosa/","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"Models version 1.3 of the NASA Open Source Agreement, a government copyleft that binds redistribution to the agreement itself and asks recipients to register. The record follows GPL-2.0-only for the license-wide share-alike duty and Apache-2.0 for the acceptance-of-warranty clause. The text is a template with blanks for the agency and the copyright notice, so no publisher is recorded.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"File name, license id, SPDX id and IRI agree. cc:legalcode is the agency URL named first in the SPDX seeAlso list and dct:source the OSI page. dct:publisher is left out: the text says 'Government Agency' and leaves the name blank.","action":"none"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"dcmitype:Software only: the agreement licenses 'Subject Software' and its documentation.","action":"none"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"The grant of rights lists, under non-patent rights, 'Use, Distribution, Reproduction, Modification, Redistribution, Display' and, under patent rights, 'Use, Distribution, Reproduction, Sale, Offer for Sale'. The record therefore carries reproduce, distribute, modify, derive, display, present, commercial use, derivative works, modified works, dalicc:patentGrant and dalicc:chargeDistributionFee, the last because Sale and Offer for Sale are expressly granted.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:promote for clause 3.E: 'A Recipient may not make any representation in the Subject Software or in any promotional, advertising or other material that may be construed as an endorsement by Government Agency'. dalicc:ChangeLicense for clause 3.A. The agreement has no patent retaliation clause, so no such prohibition is written.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:ShareAlike is license-wide: 'Distribution or Redistribution of the Subject Software must be made under this Agreement except for additions covered under paragraph 3H.' cc:SourceCode hangs off distribute for 3.A.2; cc:Attribution, cc:Notice and dalicc:addStatement (the prescribed copyright notice of 3.B) hang off distribute, modify and derive; dalicc:modificationNotice and dalicc:includeNoticeFile ('Contributor must include a file (e.g., a change log file) that describes the alterations made and the date of the alterations') are on modify and derive.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance","description":"Clause 4.A is quoted into dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer, 4.B into dalicc:LiabilityLimitation and 3.H into dalicc:WarrantyOrLiabilityAcceptance. Seven clauses are quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses, among them the sublicensing clause 3.D, the registration request 3.F, the Larger Work clause 3.I, the export-control notice 3.J, the termination clause and the applicable law clause.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Clause 3.D expressly allows sublicensing on the same terms: 'The rights granted in Paragraphs A. and B. allow the Recipient to sublicense those same rights. Such sublicense must be under the same terms and conditions of this Agreement.' The record does not carry odrl:grantUse, because the composer reports a share-alike duty together with a grant-use permission as a direct conflict. That rule is too wide: sublicensing under the same terms is exactly what a share-alike condition asks for. Proposed for the consolidation: narrow the rule so it fires only when the outgoing licence may differ, and then add odrl:grantUse here.","action":"proposed"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Clause 3.F asks every recipient to register with the agency and to report how a modification can be reached. There is no term for a reporting or registration request, and it is a request rather than an obligation. Quoted; proposed term: dalicc:recipientRegistrationRequest.","action":"none"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"gap","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"The grant itself is worldwide, so cc:jurisdiction stays dalicc:worldwide; only the governing law is national. The vocabulary has no property for a governing law that is separate from the territory of the grant, so the clause is quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses. Proposed term: dalicc:governingLaw. Text: 'This Agreement shall be subject to United States federal law only for all purposes, including, but not limited to, determining the validity of this Agreement, the meaning of its provisions and the rights, obligations and remedies of the parties.' (clause 5.C)","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Automatic termination on breach has no property that a record can carry: dalicc:terminationOnBreach is a policy quality with no predicate. The clause is quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses. Proposed term: dalicc:terminatesOnBreach as a boolean property on odrl:Set, with the cure period as a literal. Text: 'This Agreement and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically if a Recipient fails to comply with these terms and conditions, and fails to cure such noncompliance within thirty (30) days of becoming aware of such noncompliance.' (clause 5.A)","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Clause 3.J is an export-control notice. No term exists; quoted. Proposed term: dalicc:exportControlNotice, the same term the RPL records need.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer, run with the 39 axioms of licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl, returned no conflicts.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The closest siblings in the library are GPL-2.0-only for the reciprocity and Apache-2.0 for the acceptance clause. What sets NASA-1.3 apart is the government-specific waiver and indemnity in place of an ordinary liability limitation, and the registration request, neither of which any other record carries.","action":"none"}],"family":"Reciprocal and source-available","port_of":null,"variant_kind":null,"notes":"Modelled from the SPDX plain text. The agreement contains bracketed drafting instructions for the releasing agency; the quotations avoid them and take the operative paragraphs only. The registration request of clause 3.F is a request, not an obligation, so it is quoted rather than modelled as a duty."}