AndrewBrown-USDA · Sep 28, 2026 · Sep 28, 2026 · Sep 28, 2026
diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -6,3 +6,5 @@
 ^inst/extdata/.*$
 ^doc$
 ^Meta$
+^INTENT\.md$
+^LICENSE\.md$
diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,12 +1,14 @@
 Package: SoilKnowledgeBase
 Type: Package
 Title: USDA-NRCS Soil Knowledge Base
-Version: 0.3.6
-Author: Soil and Plant Science Division Staff
-Maintainer: Andrew G. Brown <andrew.g.brown@usda.gov>
+Version: 0.3.7
+Authors@R: c(
+    person("Andrew", "Brown", , "andrew.g.brown@usda.gov", role = c("aut", "cre"), comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0002-4565-533X")),
+    person("Soil and Plant Science Division Staff", role = "aut")
+  )
 Description: Unified management of USDA-NRCS, National Cooperative Soil Survey, and Soil and Plant Science Division standards.
 Imports: curl, xml2, jsonlite, rvest, stringi, tibble, dplyr, pdftools, data.table
-License: GPL-3
+License: MIT + file LICENSE
 Encoding: UTF-8
 LazyData: true
 RoxygenNote: 7.3.2

diff --git a/INTENT.md b/INTENT.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# Open Source Intent & Licensing
+
+This project is authored and maintained by United States Government employees as part of their official duties, alongside open-source community contributors.
+
+## 1. Domestic Status (United States)
+Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 105, works of the United States Government are not eligible for copyright protection within the United States. Work authored by U.S. Government personnel in the scope of employment resides in the public domain domestically.
+
+## 2. International & Permissive Licensing
+To ensure clarity across international jurisdictions where foreign copyright may be recognized under international conventions, and to govern contributions from non-federal entities, this software is made available under the terms of the [MIT License](LICENSE.md).
+
+## 3. External Contributions
+Any contributions submitted to this project by non-federal contributors are accepted under the terms of the project's MIT License.
+
+## 4. Disclaimer
+This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Use of this software does not constitute official endorsement by the U.S. Government or any of its agencies.
diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+YEAR: 2026
+COPYRIGHT HOLDER: U.S. Federal Government (in countries where recognized), package contributors
diff --git a/LICENSE.md b/LICENSE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+# MIT License
+
+Copyright (c) 2026 U.S. Federal Government (in countries where recognized)
+Copyright (c) 2026 Project Contributors
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
+copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
+SOFTWARE.
+
+---
+
+### U.S. Government Notice
+Portions of this software are a work of the United States Government and are in
+the public domain within the United States pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 105. For
+jurisdictions where copyright may subsist, and for third-party contributions,
+the terms of the MIT License above apply.
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# SoilKnowledgeBase (development version)
+
+* Relicensed package to MIT (+ file LICENSE) with federal open source disclaimer (17 U.S.C. § 105) per Code.mil guidance.
+
 # SoilKnowledgeBase 0.3.0
 * Upgrades to NSSH parsing: now using {pdftools} for PDF->TXT
 

diff --git a/README.Rmd b/README.Rmd
@@ -44,3 +44,8 @@ library(SoilKnowledgeBase)
 # if any of these failed to download
 stopifnot(all(unlist(refresh(keep_pdf = TRUE))))
 ``` 
+
+### License
+
+This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) file for details. Works created by U.S. Government employees within the scope of employment reside in the public domain domestically pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 105. See [INTENT.md](INTENT.md) for full licensing intent and international status.
+
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -39,3 +39,12 @@ you.
 
 See the NSSH on [eDirectives](http://directives.sc.egov.usda.gov/) for
 details on specific data sources.
+
+### License
+
+This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the
+[LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) file for details. Works created by U.S.
+Government employees within the scope of employment reside in the public
+domain domestically pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 105. See
+[INTENT.md](INTENT.md) for full licensing intent and international
+status.
Original file line number	Diff line number	Diff line change
		@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
		YEAR: 2026
		COPYRIGHT HOLDER: U.S. Federal Government (in countries where recognized), package contributors