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1. Requirements
2.1.5.15 The Center Director, or designee, (e.g., the Civil Servant Technical Point of Contact (POC) for the software product) shall perform the following actions:
a. Keep a list of all contributors to the software product.
b. Ensure that the software product contains appropriate disclaimer and indemnification provisions (e.g., in a “README” file) stating that the software may be subject to U.S. export control restrictions, and it is provided “as is” without any warranty, express or implied, and that the recipient waives any claims against, and indemnifies and holds harmless, NASA and its contractors and subcontractors.
1.1 Notes
NPR 7150.2, NASA Software Engineering Requirements, does not include any notes for this requirement.
1.2 History
2. Rationale
NASA needs to have the appropriate software rights in place to be able to share software internal to NASA.
3. Guidance
3.1 Civil Servant Technical Point of Contact Responsibilities
The Civil Servant Technical Point of Contact for the software product) should:
a. Keep a list of all contributors to the software product.
b. Ensure that the software product contains appropriate disclaimer and indemnification provisions (e.g., in a “README” file) stating that the software may be subject to U.S. export control restrictions, and it is provided “as is” without any warranty, express or implied, and that the recipient waives any claims against, and indemnifies and holds harmless, NASA and its contractors and subcontractors.
This requirement applies to all NASA centers and all software classifications.
3.2 List of Contributors
The only way to determine if we have the proper ownership rights is to have and maintain a list of all contributors to the software product.
Maintain a list of all contributors to a software component or software product. Make sure that you also know if the software component or software product uses and contains any commercial software components or any open source software components.
3.3 Warranty Disclaimer
Add the following statement in the comment area for the source code or read me file: “the software may be subject to U.S. export control restrictions, and it is provided “as is” without any warranty, express or implied, and that the recipient waives any claims against, and indemnifies and holds harmless, NASA and its contractors and subcontractors.”
If you are not sure, contact your Center’s Legal office.
3.4 Software Rights
If the software was developed by NASA Civil servants and the software does not include any open source or commercial software, you can share the software. If a contractor helped develop the software, then contact your legal office about the rights to the software.
You also have to ensure that you addressed Proprietary rights, usage rights, ownership, warranty, licensing rights, and transfer rights have been addressed for the software components being shared. (see SWE-027 - Use of Commercial, Government, and Legacy Software, and SWE-215 - Software License Rights).
We need to avoid software license issues associated with sharing software to need to make sure that you have clear rights in the software, a Government purpose license, or other appropriate license or permission from third-party owners before providing the software for internal NASA software sharing or reuse.
3.5 Additional Guidance
Additional guidance related to this requirement may be found in the following materials in this Handbook:
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3.6 Center Process Asset Libraries
SPAN - Software Processes Across NASA
SPAN contains links to Center managed Process Asset Libraries. Consult these Process Asset Libraries (PALs) for Center-specific guidance including processes, forms, checklists, training, and templates related to Software Development. See SPAN in the Software Engineering Community of NEN. Available to NASA only. https://nen.nasa.gov/web/software/wiki 197
See the following link(s) in SPAN for process assets from contributing Centers (NASA Only).
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4. Small Projects
This requirement applies to all NASA centers and all software classifications.
5. Resources
5.1 References
- (SWEREF-197) Software Processes Across NASA (SPAN) web site in NEN SPAN is a compendium of Processes, Procedures, Job Aids, Examples and other recommended best practices.
5.2 Tools
NASA users find this in the Tools Library in the Software Processes Across NASA (SPAN) site of the Software Engineering Community in NEN.
The list is informational only and does not represent an “approved tool list”, nor does it represent an endorsement of any particular tool. The purpose is to provide examples of tools being used across the Agency and to help projects and centers decide what tools to consider.
6. Lessons Learned
6.1 NASA Lessons Learned
No Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.
6.2 Other Lessons Learned
No other Lessons Learned have currently been identified for this requirement.
