PURPOSE. This NASA Procedures and Guidelines (NPG) establishes procedures, guidelines, and responsibilities for the domestic and foreign release, under the policy set forth in NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 2210.1, of software created by or for NASA. Software created by or for NASA arises from work performed by employees of NASA and NASA contractors, either solely or jointly among multiple parties, and from work performed by NASA employees working with non-federal parties with or without an underlying agreement.

This NPG is applicable to NASA Headquarters and Centers, including Component Facilities.

This NPG is applicable to the protection and release of all unclassified software:

(1) Created exclusively by, or jointly with, NASA employees as part of the NASA employee's official duties;

(2) Created by a non-federal party where intellectual property rights to the software have been assigned to the U. S. Government, or have been licensed to the Government where the license authorizes the Government to grant sublicenses; or

(3) In the lawful possession of NASA, except as otherwise stated in subparagraphs d through h.

c. This NPG applies to new software, or any preexisting software modified by more than a merely trivial variation or improvement thereof as defined in paragraph 3.2.3, that may have significant commercial value or utility to potential private or public sector users or applications outside of NASA.

d. This NPG does not apply to software released without restriction as to use or disclosure prior to the effective date of NPD 2210.1, October 17, 1997, or to software released pursuant to NMI 2210.2A or NMI 2210.2B, which were effective from December 23, 1982, until December 13, 1995, or software that had been previously released through Computer Software Management and Information Center (COSMIC).

e. This NPD does not apply to software of negligible commercial value or utility to potential private or public-sector users or applications outside of NASA, or to software which does not represent a significant advance over commercially available software.

f. This NPG does not apply to computer databases or web pages with integrated databases, data input to, or output from a computer program (such as data models), software documentation, web pages, or commercial software as these terms are defined in Section 2.1. In accordance with applicable laws and regulations, Centers have discretionary authority to publicly release computer databases and software documentation depending on the Government's rights and obligations with regard to such data. Upon request, and depending on the Government's intellectual property rights, NASA computer programs that are used to read and manipulate computer databases should be publicly released with the computer databases, but only if such computer programs are not commercially available.

g. This NPG is applicable to JPL to the extent specified in its contract.