NEC Licence (Work of US Gov. Employees)
I've been trying to make a definitive decision on what to say
about the copyright of the NEC antenna modelling code developed
by Lauwrence Livermore Labs. The code has no detailed copyright
statement; but claims
C ***********NOTICE**********
C THIS COMPUTER CODE MATERIAL WAS PREPARED AS AN ACCOUNT OF WORK
C SPONSORED BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. NEITHER THE UNITED
C STATES NOR THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, NOR ANY OF
C THEIR EMPLOYEES, NOR ANY OF THEIR CONTRACTORS, SUBCONTRACTORS, OR
C THEIR EMPLOYEES, MAKES ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, OR
C ASSUMES ANY LEGAL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY,
C COMPLETENESS OR USEFULNESS OF ANY INFORMATION, APPARATUS, PRODUCT
C OR PROCESS DISCLOSED, OR REPRESENTS THAT ITS USE WOULD NOT
C INFRINGE PRIVATELY-OWNED RIGHTS.
I've interpreted this statement, plus the fact that there exist many
commercial programs (for sale at profit) including the NEC2 code in one
form or another as reasonable evidence that NEC2 is suitably `free'.
No special licence seems to exist between these commercial vendors and
the NEC authors/their employers. Many of them offer an upgrade to NEC4
(which is confusingly a different program entirely) which needs
a licence from Berkeley (maybe even goverment clearance -- it used to).
The distinction into NEC2 and NEC4 classes seems to make the situation
quite clear.
Does anybody think that this is unclear? I'm not sure what should
go in the copyright file (at the moment it is the comments shown
above!). I'd appreciate a source of information on what makes
work of US goverment employees `public domain'.
Alan Bain
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