Does releasing software under an OSS license count as commercialization?
In most cases, yes. U.S. law governing federal procurement (U.S. Code Title 41, Chapter 7, Section 403) defines “commercial item” as including “Any item, other than real property, that is of a type customarily used by the general public or by non-governmental entities for purposes other than governmental purposes (i.e., it has some non-government use), and (i) Has been sold, leased, or licensed to the general public; or (ii) Has been offered for sale, lease, or license to the general public …”. Thus, as long as the software has at least one non-governmental use, software released (or offered for release) to the public is a commercial item for procurement purposes, even if it was originally developed using public funds. This does not mean that organizations will automatically arise to help develop/support it. Whether or not this will occur depends on factors such as the number of potential users (more potential users makes this more likely), the existence of competing OSS programs (wh
