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Re: Proper Notice

> To: address@hidden
> From: address@hidden (Chuck Denham)
> Subject: Proper Notice

Chuck,

>         I have some questions concerning the official notice that ought to
> accompany NetCDF software, specifically our "mexcdf" Matlab/NetCDF
> interface.  We can easily incorporate the notice (found in netcdf.h) into
> our source codes, but most of our customers are more apt to be using one of
> our prefabricated versions instead.  Would it be acceptible for us to
> include the notice in our runtime "help" file, for example?  How do other
> NetCDF developers handle this?  What is the best way to assure that
> everyone is properly credited, without imposing too greatly on the
> end-user?
>         Along these same lines, I would like to adapt your official notice
> to our own need for a similar sounding message of authorship, distribution,
> and fair use.  Would you mind if we did that?  Is your notice copyrighted,
> for example?

I didn't make a big deal of it, but last April, conditions on use and
distribution of the netCDF software were liberalized by changing a
sentence in the software copyright notice from

    Further, the user agrees to credit UCAR/Unidata in any publications that
    result from the use of this software or in any product that includes this
    software. 

to 

    Further, UCAR requests that the user credit UCAR/Unidata in any
    publications that result from the use of this software or in any product
    that includes this software. 

after Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project, pointed out that the
old terms could create unnecessary problems for users and suggested the
change.  The current copyright is at

   http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/copyright.html

Hence it's not strictly necessary that you put a notice anywhere, but if
you do, feel free to put it anywhere that's convenient for you, for
example in an "acknowledgments" section of your "help" file or
documentation.

I'm really not sure how other netCDF developers handle this, since we
haven't been monitoring it.  We have had to sign a couple of letters to
commercial developers to satisfy their company lawyers that the software
was really freely available and unencumbered except as noted in the
software copyright notice.

Feel free to adapt our notice for any purpose.  I originally stole, oops
I mean paid homage to the notice in the X window System distribution :-),
but our intellectual property department decided to change the wording
to something that would suit them, and that's how we ended up with the
current copyright statement, except for the "Stallman modification" made
last April.

_____________________________________________________________________

Russ Rew                                         UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden                     http://www.unidata.ucar.edu