[McIDAS #ZUQ-528055]: Problem Downloading McIDAS

Hi Lloyd,

re:
> I am trying to download McIdas at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology
> and Hydrology, but I get the following reply:
> 
> 'You don't have permission to access /downloads/McIdas/index.jsp on this
> server.'

Downloads of McIDAS from Unidata for users whose email addresses don't
end in '.edu' require approval on a case-by-case basis.

Question:

- were you logged into the Unidata website under the address address@hidden?

Background:

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.  In the recent past
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 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.

Again, I feel that by virtue of the use-by and training-of students at the
University of the West Indies, CIMH qualifies as a user of Unidata McIDAS-X.

re:
> We had installed McIdas before, but there was a computer crash and would
> like to reinstall.

OK.

re:
> Please send me instructions showing how I can download McIdas.

As soon as you send back affirmation to the above conditions, I will setup
Unidata McIDAS-X download access for you.

Further comments:

You may want to consider moving to more active use of the freely-available
Unidata IDV or SSEC McIDAS-V (next generation McIDAS based on the Unidata
IDV).  Both of these applications come without access restrictions, so you
wouldn't run into the hassles that running McIDAS entails.  FYI: I installed
an early version of the IDV when I visited the CIMH back in November, 2004.
The program has become much more flexible/usable/friendly since then, so
I strongly encourage you/CIMH to re-evaluate it.

Questions:

- is David Farrell still the principal at CIMH?

- would the CIMH be interested in re-exploring Unidata tools via a
  remote interactions or a site visit?

  It is not that we have many travel funds, but I am interested in
  keeping contact with the CIMH and making it and its participating
  states aware of the tools we offer.

Cheers,

Tom
--
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: ZUQ-528055
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed