1. Requirements

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:

3.6 Center Process Asset Libraries

See the following link(s) in SPAN for process assets from contributing Centers (NASA Only). 

4. Small Projects

This requirement applies to all NASA centers and all software classifications.

5. Resources

5.1 References

5.2 Tools

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.