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> 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