DC Government Open Source Guidelines

Licensing DC Government Projects

DC Government open source code and content should be provided with the least restriction possible. This means avoiding constraints on how, when, or by whom code may be repurposed. Requirements for attribution should be avoided.

The following open source license and contributing texts should be applied to DC government open source projects, except where a compelling need for other provisions exists. When the project contains work performed by a contractor, ensure that copyright is either held by the District or that the contractor applies the same license to their contributions.

This “boilerplate” repository provides an example of their use.

License

District of Columbia Public Domain Dedication

Public Domain

This project is in the public domain within the United States. Additionally, the Government of the District of Columbia waives copyright and related rights in the work worldwide through the CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication.

CC0 1.0 Universal

This is a human-readable summary of the CC0 1.0 Universal Legal Code. Read the full text for more details.

The Government of the District of Columbia has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Other Information

In no way are the patent or trademark rights of any person affected by CC0, nor are the rights that other persons may have in the work or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. Unless expressly stated otherwise, the Government of the District of Columbia makes no warranties about the work, and disclaims liability for all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law. When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the District of Columbia or any of its employees, contractors, or volunteers.

Contributing

Public Domain

This project is in the public domain within the United States, and copyright and related rights in the work worldwide are waived through the CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication. For more information, see LICENSE.md.

All contributions to this project will be released under the CC0 dedication. By submitting a pull request, you are affirming that the changes are yours to license and you are agreeing to comply with this waiver of copyright interest, or that the changes are already in the public domain.

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Glossary of Terms

  • Commit

    Committing records changes made to a Git repository.

  • Fork

    A fork is a copy of someone else’s Git repository. You can make changes to your fork without affecting the original project.

  • Git

    Git is a popular free and open source system for tracking changes in text-based files. It is primarily used for software development.

  • GitHub

    GitHub is a web-based platform on which you can host and work on Git repositories. It provides a number of useful features, including bug tracking, feature requests, and task management.

  • Open Source

    In brief, open source licenses allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared. They abide by standards laid out in the Open Source Definition.

  • Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

    PII is any information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context.

  • Private Key

    Private keys are a kind of PII used to decrypt messages sent over the Internet. They form part of a system called Public-Key Cryptography.

  • Push

    Pushing allows you to share the Git commits you have made with others.

  • Repository

    Repositories are places where a Git project’s files and their revision history are stored.

  • Token

    A software token can be used in two-factor authentication to authorize access to computer services.

  • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

    In two-factor authentication, two different components are used in combination to verify a user’s identity (e.g. a password and a single-use token sent to your email).