Letter to Academic Licensees

OpenEye provides no-fee academic licensing to qualified academics. The goals are to support academic research and education and contribute to the advancement of science.

In order for OpenEye to provide no-fee academic licensing, it is imperative that its commercial interests not be compromised, and that administrative and support costs be managed and kept low. The purpose of this letter is to convey these points, and the implications for customer support of academic licensees, and thereby define reasonable expectations for academic licensees.

1. The license terms. Please read, understand, and respect the academic license agreement. Unlike many software contracts, it is not excessively long, not incomprehensible legalese boilerplate, but rather a sincere attempt to communicate the fact and spirit of the requirements for academic users of OpenEye scientific software. See also our explanation Commercial vs. Non-Commercial. If you don't understand something there, please ask for clarification. Please understand that license violations will most likely result in unilateral and immediate termination of an academic license.

2. Customer support. Academic licensing does not include software support. This means OpenEye has no obligation to answer questions, provide software updates, or feel bad about any bugs! (Hypothetically.) Support contracts are available to academic licensees for a discounted fee, currently 12% per annum of the software purchase price.

3. Response time. In practice, most questions will typically be answered, but with low priority, and resonse times will vary widely depending on workload. One week or more should be regarded as normal for licensing, support and any other inquiries. Telephoning is discouraged and may result in de-prioritization.

4. academic@eyesopen.com The mailing list academic@eyesopen.com is intended in part for the self-support of academic licensees. Academics are welcome to join this list and post questions to the community. This list will also be used for administrative announcements from OpenEye. At least one person per licensed academic group is expected to subscribe.

5. Publishing and citations. One goal of OpenEye academic licensing is to promote research and publications related to OpenEye software. Academic licensees are expected to cite OpenEye software wherever appropriate and notify OpenEye of new publications.

6. The gray areas of commercial interests. Academic licensees are expected to notify OpenEye in any cases where involvement with a commercial entity may conflict with the goals of OpenEye academic licensing, even where the academic agreement is not violated. There is no way to list all such possible cases, but examples might be: (1) owning shares of a competitor, (2) serving on the scientific advisory board of a competitor, or (3) your daughter-in-law is the CEO of a competitor.

7. No evaluation licenses for academics. As of June 2007, no evaluation licenses are being issued to academics. This policy change is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the academic licensing program in providing licenses to qualified research and teaching groups.

Welcome to the OpenEye community. We hope you find the software useful.

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