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| CONTENTS | |
| Public Domain Notice | |
| Exceptions (for bundled 3rd-party code) | |
| Copyright F.A.Q. | |
| ============================================================== | |
| PUBLIC DOMAIN NOTICE | |
| National Center for Biotechnology Information | |
| With the exception of certain third-party files summarized below, this | |
| software is a "United States Government Work" under the terms of the | |
| United States Copyright Act. It was written as part of the authors' | |
| official duties as United States Government employees and thus cannot | |
| be copyrighted. This software is freely available to the public for | |
| use. The National Library of Medicine and the U.S. Government have not | |
| placed any restriction on its use or reproduction. | |
| Although all reasonable efforts have been taken to ensure the accuracy | |
| and reliability of the software and data, the NLM and the U.S. | |
| Government do not and cannot warrant the performance or results that | |
| may be obtained by using this software or data. The NLM and the U.S. | |
| Government disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including | |
| warranties of performance, merchantability or fitness for any | |
| particular purpose. | |
| Please cite the authors in any work or product based on this material. | |
| ============================================================== | |
| EXCEPTIONS (in all cases excluding NCBI-written makefiles): | |
| See LICENSE from https://github.com/ncbi/ncbi-vdb | |
| ============================================================== | |
| Copyright F.A.Q. | |
| -------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Q. Our product makes use of the NCBI source code, and we made changes | |
| and additions to that version of the NCBI code to better fit it to | |
| our needs. Can we copyright the code, and how? | |
| A. You can copyright only the *changes* or the *additions* you made to the | |
| NCBI source code. You should identify unambiguously those sections of | |
| the code that were modified, e.g. by commenting any changes you made | |
| in the code you distribute. Therefore, your license has to make clear | |
| to users that your product is a combination of code that is public domain | |
| within the U.S. (but may be subject to copyright by the U.S. in foreign | |
| countries) and code that has been created or modified by you. | |
| -------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Q. Can we (re)license all or part of the NCBI source code? | |
| A. No, you cannot license or relicense the source code written by NCBI | |
| since you cannot claim any copyright in the software that was developed | |
| at NCBI as a 'government work' and consequently is in the public domain | |
| within the U.S. | |
| -------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Q. What if these copyright guidelines are not clear enough or are not | |
| applicable to my particular case? | |
| A. Contact us. Send your questions to 'sra-tools@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov'. | |