## Licensing Intent 

The intent is that this software and documentation ("Project") should
be treated as if it is licensed under the license(s) associated with
the Project ("License") in the `COPYING` file.  However, because some
contributors work for the United States (U.S.) Federal Government, it
is not that simple.

The portions of this Project written by United States (U.S.) federal
government employees within the scope of their federal employment are
ineligible for copyright protection in the U.S.; this is generally
understood to mean that these portions of the Project are placed in
the public domain.

In countries where copyright protection is available (which does not
include the U.S.), contributions made by U.S. Federal government
employees are released under the License. Merged contributions from
private contributors are released under the License.

## Background History

STEPcode was originally developed as the STEP Class Libraries (SCL) by
the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  Prior
to 2009, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and members of the BRL-CAD
open source community researched freely available open source options
for ISO 10303 STEP support.  Development had ceased, no open source
community existed, the code was out of date in many regards, and
additional work was needed to become production-ready, but SCL was
found to be a usable reference implementation.

Consulting with NIST and others circa 2009, the BRL-CAD community
began efforts to take over SCL development, modernization, and code
enhancements.  The BRL-CAD community purchased licenses for the ISO
10303 standard and began working to bring SCL up-to-date with the
latest specification.  By 2011, significant progress had been made,
the project had garnered attention from others, and STEPcode was
establishd as an independent project.

## Original NIST License Text

This software was [originally] produced by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. government, and
by statute is not subject to copyright in the United
States. Recipients of this software assume all responsibility
associated with its operation, modification, maintenance, and
subsequent redistribution.

Acknowledgements:
The STEP Class Library (SCL) was developed by the Manufacturing 
Systems Integration Division at NIST to support testing of the 
Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (a.k.a STEP) and 
validation of STEP's emerging implementation specifications. Funding 
for the project has come from the Department of Commerce and the 
Department of Defense agencies including the Office of the Defense 
CALS (Continuous Acquisition and Life-Cycle Support) Executive and 
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Recent 
enhancements [circa 1992] were sponsored by the National Information Infrastructure 
Protocols Consortium and NIST's Systems Integration for Manufacturing 
Applications (SIMA) program.

~~~~
/* ********************************************************************
 *                            D I S C L A I M E R
 *                              (February 6, 1992)
 *  
 * There is no warranty for the NIST PDES Toolkit.
 * If the NIST PDES Toolkit
 * is modified by someone else and passed on, NIST wants
 * the Toolkit's recipients to know that what they have is not what NIST
 * distributed.
 * 
 * Policies
 * 
 * 1. Anyone may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the NIST PDES Toolkit 
 *    source code as received in any medium.
 * 
 * 2. Anyone may modify your copy or copies of the NIST PDES Toolkit source
 *    code or any portion of it, and copy and distribute such modifications
 *    provided that all modifications are clearly associated with the entity
 *    that performs the modifications.
 * 
 * NO WARRANTY
 * ===========
 * 
 * NIST PROVIDES ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  THE NIST PDES TOOLKIT
 * IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
 * EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
 * WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 * THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS
 * WITH YOU.  SHOULD ANY PORTION OF THE NIST PDES TOOLKIT PROVE DEFECTIVE,
 * YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
 * 
 * IN NO EVENT WILL NIST BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES,
 * INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST MONIES, OR OTHER SPECIAL,
 * INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR
 * INABILITY TO USE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA
 * BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY THIRD PARTIES OR A
 * FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH PROGRAMS NOT DISTRIBUTED BY
 * NIST) THE PROGRAMS, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
 * SUCH DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY.
 */
 ~~~~