Alot of the conversation I have seen so far has been US-centric. That's fair, given that this was posted during US business hours, but for the US I don't reall

Alot of the conversation I have seen so far has been US-centric. That's fair, given that this was posted during US business hours, but for the US I don't really think this discussion applies as much. Works created by the United States Government are not covered by copyright in the US, effectively making them public domain _in the US_. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 "But—", you say, "—the code the NSA is publishing has a license attached!" Indeed, that confused me too, until I found the answer at https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.html#_Toc505089933 https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.htm...: >…copyright exclusion for works of the U.S. Government is not intended to have any impact on protection of these works abroad (S. REP. NO. 473, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 56 (1976)). Therefore, the U.S. Government may obtain protection in other countries depending on the treatment of government works by the national copyright law of the particular country. Copyright is sometimes asserted by U.S. Government agencies outside the United States. So, Public Domain within the US, and Copywritten (but OSS-licensed) outside of the US. My understanding is that copyright in EU countries is much more complicated. For example, apparently the view of the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16CGK1T9MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16CGK1T9MM As for anything Classified in the US, there are laws controlling distribution. So, take something GPL-licensed: If you take, use, and modify the software, you are not required to provide the code unless you distribute the product to others. See the question "Since U.S. Government works are not protected by copyright in the U.S., are all U.S. Government works publicly available without restriction in the U.S.?" from https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.html#315 https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.htm... (it's pretty long, and has a _lot_ of references, so I'm not reproducing it here) Of course, you may argue that, if a hacking tool is pushed to a remote system, and that hacking tool was made using GPL-licensed code, then the source should be distributed with the hacking tool. Also, note I said GPL, _not_ AGPL. For both of those cases, I don't know if the laws governing Classified material trump those governing Copyright (I'd bet they do), and what International law has to say.