The license attached to the script/software reads as follows:
“Software code created by U.S. Government employees is not subject to copyright in the United States(17 U.S.C. §105). The United States/Department of Commerce reserve all rights to seek and obtain copyright protection in countries other than the United States for Software authored in its entirety by the Department of Commerce. To this end, the Department of Commerce hereby grants to Recipient a royalty-free, nonexclusive license to use, copy, and create derivative works of the Software outside of the United States.”
A few questions:
Is this "open-source" or "pseudo-open-source"(i.e., not technically open-source, but functionally operates the same) given the license statement and the public availability of code?
Does this mean for U.S. citizens, this software essentially contains no copyright and is free and open to use?
- Is this partially due to the freedom of information act? This sub-bullet is not essential and is more of a gee-whiz question?
Regardless of copyright or lack thereof, what can I do with this and ethically what do I need to do or should do to give credit to the authors of the software. The U.S. Government is technically the authors if I am reading it write, but the code is associated with a peer-review paper by government employees; do I cite the peer-review article?