www.phidot.org

Hi,

I can't find any information on the license of Program Mark and any restrictions associated with it. I am wanting to know who is allowed to use it and who is not. Presumably it should not be used for Commercial use?

Thank you,
Sarah

SBeatham wrote:Hi,

I can't find any information on the license of Program Mark and any restrictions associated with it. I am wanting to know who is allowed to use it and who is not. Presumably it should not be used for Commercial use?

Thank you,
Sarah

No license in the sense you mean. Free for any and all to use. No reason it couldn't be used for 'commercial purposes', although not quite sure what those might be (beyond, say, some commercial interest in estimating abundance of a commercially-harvested organism).

Hi Evan,

Thank you for your quick response. It is for a bid we are putting together to estimate the stray dog populations for disease control purposes so it would be done under a commercial contract. Good to know that we won't be stepping on any toes though. Do you know if the same applies for the software DISTANCE or should I contact someone else about that?

Thanks,
Sarah

SBeatham wrote:Hi Evan,

Thank you for your quick response. It is for a bid we are putting together to estimate the stray dog populations for disease control purposes so it would be done under a commercial contract. Good to know that we won't be stepping on any toes though. Do you know if the same applies for the software DISTANCE or should I contact someone else about that?

Thanks,
Sarah

I can't speak for the DISTANCE cartel, but I suspect the answer is the same. The vast majority of the software used for mark-encounter-distance types of analysis is 'free-ware', with the only proviso being -- 'if the values you report are in error, the error is the user's responsibility'. R has a little blurb when you fire it up which expresses this sentiment:

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

Subsitute MARK (or DISTANCE, or sect, or PRESENCE....) for R, and you get the picture. The only difference is, MARK doesn't have a licence is some form of legaleze that R does. I suspect same is true for DISTANCE and PRESENCE.