All users should read this agreement carefully. A user, who receives any version of the source code of FVCOM, must accept all the terms and conditions of this agreement and also agree that this agreement is like any written negotiated agreement signed by you. You may be required to have another written agreement directly with Dr. Changsheng Chen at SMAST/UMASS-D and Dr. Robert C. Beardsley at WHOI The Finite-Volume Coastal Ocean Model (“FVCOM”) source code has been developed in the Marine Ecosystem Dynamics Modeling Laboratory led by Dr. C. Chen at the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth (UMASS-D) in collaboration with Dr. R. Beardsley at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. All copyrights to the FVCOM code are reserved.
The FVCOM development team agrees to the terms of the MIT/X license under which FVCOM is distributed. The user agrees that he/she will use the FVCOM source code, and any modifications to the FVCOM source code that the user may create, principally for non-commercial purposes. The term "non-commercial," as used in this End User License Agreement, means academic or other scholarly research which is not undertaken for profit. FVCOM could be used for a commercial profit application with permission from Dr. C. Chen, a leader of the FVCOM development team.
The user agrees to participate in the FVCOM community through three primary mechanisms openly. These are (a) reporting code bugs and problems, (b) sharing major modifications made to the code, and (c) contributing to an open and ongoing discussion of model deficiencies, needed improvements and additions, and major successes. These mechanisms are intended to benefit the entire FVCOM user community through quick notification of code problems, possible solutions, major code improvements, and, in general, the further development of the FVCOM source code and the associated software tools needed to process, visualize and interpret FVCOM model output.
The user agrees to inform Dr. Chen about any FVCOM model validation test case conducted by the user before the formal publication of the test case results. This step is intended to minimize potential errors in gridding, model setup, boundary conditions, and coding that could contribute to poor FVCOM performance in the validation test case. There is no intent here to exercise any prior restraint on publication.
The user agrees to acknowledge FVCOM in any publications resulting from the use of the FVCOM source code. The user agrees to use the name “FVCOM” to refer to the model.