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    FBI accused of violating MIT License in smart contract code usage

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    The FBI has been accused of using open-source code libraries from OpenZeppelin without providing proper credit, implying a possible breach of the MIT License. The individual levelling the allegation, 0xCygaar, says they’ve already warned the FBI about the issue. While copyright infringement, the situation is unlikely to go to court due to ‘sovereign immunity’, which generally protect US government agencies from being sued. It is expected that the FBI will rectify this by amending the ‘smart contract’ to include the necessary license notice, complying with the MIT License rules.

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    It looks like the FBI might be in some hot water, accused of breaking the rules of an open-source code license. The person leveling the accusation is 0xCygaar, who works on AbstractChain, and they’ve taken to social media to make their claim.

    They say that the FBI have been using some code libraries from OpenZeppelin (a sort of digital lending library for computer code) without giving the proper credit. Basically, this code is covered by something called an MIT License which says you can use the code freely as long as you include the original license when you do.

    Not doing that could land you in some trouble, because it’s essentially copyright infringement. 0xCygaar says they’ve already warned the FBI about it, but we don’t know yet if anything is being done to fix it.

    The issue is with the FBI not putting this MIT License notice in when they’ve used some OpenZeppelin libraries, which is something they used to create something called ‘smart contracts’.

    This MIT License is really important in the blockchain world, where Ethereum is king. It means you can distribute and change the code, and use it for free, as long as you keep to the original license terms.

    Looking at the FBI’s smart contract online, we can see that it is tagged with ‘Unlicensed’, which has got a mixed response from followers of the story.

    If it turns out the claim is true, the FBI could be in a spot of bother. While the MIT License is friendly towards developers, it’s still lawfully binding. If OpenZeppelin wanted, they could technically send a ‘cease-and-desist’ order to the FBI that would mean they’ve either got to fix the issue or stop using the code.

    But before we get carried away, it’s unlikely this would go to court because of something called ‘sovereign immunity’ that generally protects U.S government agencies from being sued unless they agree to it (which they’re very unlikely to do!).

    It’s possible, however, that enough public or government pressure might force the FBI to make sure they stick to open-source licensing rules.

    Most likely, the FBI will sort this out by amending the smart contract to include the required license notice. This would make sure they’re following the MIT License rules and would help avoid any further legal issues or upset in the online community.

    We don’t know yet whether FBI will address this issue publicly, or just sort it out without any noise. We’ll have to wait and see as the story develops.

    Source: Cointelegraph

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