HMMER User's Guide

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License terms

If you're just going to use HMMER to analyze sequence, it's free to you, and you can stop reading the legalese. If you have a specially licensed (non-GPL) copy of HMMER from Washington University, you have your own legalese, in the form of a separate written WashU licensing contract; this chapter does not apply to you. But if you have a public copy of HMMER and you're interested in modifying or borrowing the source code or distributing the software yourself, keep reading.

HMMER is a copyrighted work, and is not public domain software. It is distributed under an ``Open Source'' license, the GNU General Public License (GPL). In brief, what the license means is that:

• If you're just going to use HMMER to analyze sequence, it's free.

• If you want to redistribute unmodified copies of HMMER, you're free to do so. The license even permits you to sell copies of HMMER, or include it (in unmodified form) as part of an otherwise proprietary software package. The license and my copyright must remain unchanged.

• If you want to modify HMMER and use your modified copy internally (in your company or department), you're free to do so.

• If you want to modify HMMER or borrow any part of its source code for your software package, and you plan to redistribute your code (either freely or for profit), you must:
  • freely distribute your code under the GNU GPL, retaining my copyright on the parts I wrote; or
  • if you're a free software developer but you prefer a different open source license, contact me and I'll typically ship you the code under your favorite open source license. For small chunks of code, I will typically ship you source with a very permissive open source license (not the GPL) so you can do what you like with it without worrying about the GPL's viral effects; or
  • if you're a proprietary software developer, contact Washington University to arrange for non-GPL licensing terms. For commercial licenses, we will typically ask for a fee and/or royalties.