Healthcare.gov Omits Attribution, Violates GPL Licence Agreement

Imagine the surprise at British software developer Spry Media to find its code in healthcare.gov 's website. Since the code has a GPL licence it is not a copyright violation but developers consider it to be unethical to rip off on another's code without attribution. It is a violation of the licensing agreement. Comparisons of comments within the DataTables script by SpryMedia and the Healthcare.gov have turned up multiple instances of exact comments, so the government's work is clearly based on SpryMedia's. But why remove the code attribution? Most likely this is a simple error done at the programming level but it invites the suspicion that HHS paid what is approaching half a billion dollars for copy and paste code. SpryMedia is less than pleased to be associated with such a colossal failure but has yet to receive an explanation let alone an apology.