Hi Brian, re: > I'm in the process of setting up LDM/McIDAS for one of our researchers > here at the University of Manitoba. > > I have registered on the unidata.ucar.edu site, but I am still seeing > "403 - Forbidden" errors when trying to download the McIDAS files > (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/mcidas). > > Is this something that will resolve itself in a few hours, or is there > something further I need to do to get access? Actually, the reason for being denied access to Unidata McIDAS is that all attempts by users whose emails do not end in '.edu' (i.e., non-U.S. educational institutions) must be approved first. The following is some boilerplate that I am required to send to non-.edu folks who seek to download McIDAS from us. I am confident that you meet all of the requirements for non-.edu use of McIDAS, but I still need you to send back a statement affirming the items listed below. I apologize in advance for the hassle that setting up access entails! Unidata has long been licensed by the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) of the University of Wisconsin at Madison to distribute our version of McIDAS, Unidata McIDAS, to educational institutions. Within the past year SSEC refined their definition of allowable use of McIDAS at institutions outside of the U.S. Representatives from non-U.S. educational sites are typically recognized by their email addresses not ending in '.edu'. I am required to have prospective McIDAS users read and agree to the following: SSEC considers permissible users of the international university community to be those who are using McIDAS-X for academic classroom instruction or academic research by students related to obtaining a degree. Research institutes and government agencies that use McIDAS-X for meteorological research or operations must purchase a license from SSEC for the non-academic use. Given this clarification, and if Unidata users remain within the licensing terms that include no re-distribution of any portion of the software, SSEC is agreeable to providing this software to the international university Unidata user community. Given the above position, we need a clear statement from you that specifies _all_ of the following: - you are accessing McIDAS from Unidata for use in a university; please provide the name of the department and university that the download is intended for - McIDAS must be used for academic classroom instruction or academic research by students related to obtaining a degree - your installation of McIDAS is not for use by a government agency, non-academic research institute, or private concern - you agree that you will not re-distribute any portion of the software As soon as you state that your use of Unidata McIDAS will conform to the terms listed above, we will add the email address: address@hidden to the list that allows downloading of Unidata McIDAS. We can only add your email address to the list of users allowed to download McIDAS if you are registered with the Unidata website under that address. If you are not yet registered with our site, please do so before sending back the reply to this message. Again, I apologize for the hassle! Cheers, Tom -- **************************************************************************** Unidata User Support UCAR Unidata Program (303) 497-8642 P.O. Box 3000 address@hidden Boulder, CO 80307 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unidata HomePage http://www.unidata.ucar.edu **************************************************************************** Ticket Details =================== Ticket ID: FJZ-847202 Department: Support McIDAS Priority: Normal Status: Closed
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