foremost legality (GPL vs Public Domain)

[Toshio Kuratomi]

Hey all, I packaged foremost, a unique data recovery/undeletion tool and
started it through Extras but now I'm running into legal questions about
its licensing.  The summary so far: the original version of foremost was
created by the US Government and hence is Public Domain.  A new
maintainer added code that he created and from another project that are
GPL.  The question: What is the license of the resultant code or is it
illegal to combine it in this fashion?

What follows is my last correspondence with the original, governmental
author.  Please let me know if you think I'm wrong in any of my
thinking.

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 20:21 -0400, Jesse Kornblum wrote: 
> The GPL FAQ covers this:
> 
> Source: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLUSGov
> (emphasis added)
> If the program is written by US government employees, it is in the 
> public domain, which means it is not copyrighted. Since the GNU GPL is 
> based on copyright, **such a program cannot be released under the GNU 
> GPL**. (It can still be  free software, however; a public domain 
> program is free.)

> Sorry, but foremost is public domain. The good is that nobody else can 
> ever copyright it! I know that may be small consolation, but that's the 
> way the cookie crumbles.
> 
Interesting reading!  My reading of this passage is that a US Government
employee (as opposed to a contractor hired by the US Government) must
release the code they create as part of their job into the public
domain.  I assume that Nick isn't a government employee so he can
release his portion of foremost code under the GPL.

These passages:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCRequiredToClaimCopyright
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCCombinePublicDomainWithGPL
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCGPLUSGovAdd
add further information about the FSF's interpretation of the
interaction of the GPL and Public Domain.

They anticipate the case where a piece of GPL software exists and
contributers add public domain code to it.  The FSF assertion is that
the public domain code remains public domain but the work as a whole is
GPL.

In our case we have software which was originally public domain and GPL
code is being added to it.  I'd have to query the FSF about it but I
think the logical extension to the FAQ links cited is that the original
public domain _code_ remains public domain but the software as a whole
becomes GPL.  Does that sound reasonable to you?

If not, it seems impossible to contribute GPL code to foremost.
However, it is possible to fork a new project under the GPL and then add
the public domain code to it and release the whole as GPL leaving us
with the same code-base as we have now under a new project name.
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