The Government of Canada creates greater transparency, accountability, increases citizen engagement, and drives innovation and economic opportunities through open data, open information, and open dialogue.
Paying attention to the particular license of the software is particularly important. Some licenses include clauses that stipulate that changes to the software which are then redistributed must automatically be licensed under the same license as the original software. This binds the GC to a particular license agreement in these cases. In some cases, this may limit the methods by which the GC is able to distribute goods. For example, the iOS app store does not allow GPLv2 licensed software distribution, and therefore would prevent the GC from prohibit the GC from distributing an app within that platform if it were restricted solely to GPL based licensing.
More permissive licenses exist, and should be sought to maximize the freedoms available not only to the GC, but to all Canadians. In cases where a restrictive license is in place for a particular piece of software, it may be possible to ask the authors to relicense that software under more permissive terms.