Veripool Terms of Service

Thank you for using Veripool! We're happy you're here. Please read this Terms of Service agreement carefully before accessing or using Veripool. Because it is such an important contract between us and our users, we have tried to make it as clear as possible. For your convenience, we have presented these terms in a short non-binding summary followed by the full legal terms.

Effective date: May 13, 2018

A. Definitions

Short version: We use these basic terms throughout the agreement, and they have specific meanings. You should know what we mean when we use each of the terms.

  • The "Agreement" refers, collectively, to all the terms, conditions, notices contained or referenced in this document (the "Terms of Service" or the "Terms") and all other operating rules, policies (including the Veripool Privacy Statement, and procedures that we may publish from time to time on the Website.
  • The "Service" refers to the applications, software, products, and services provided by Veripool.
  • The "Website" refers to Veripool's website located at veripool.org, and all content, services, and products provided by Veripool at or through the Website. It also refers to Veripool-owned project domains, such as verilator.org.
  • "The User," "You," and "Your" refer to the individual person, company, or organization that has visited or is using the Website or Service; that accesses or uses any part of the account; or that directs the use of the account in the performance of its functions. A User must be at least 13 years of age.
  • "Veripool," "We," and "Us" refer to Veripool, as well as our affiliates, directors, subsidiaries, contractors, licensors, officers, agents, and employees.
  • "Content" refers to content featured or displayed through the Website, including without limitation text, data, articles, images, photographs, graphics, software, applications, designs, features, and other materials that are available on the Website or otherwise available through the Service. "Content" also includes Services. "User-Generated Content" is Content, written or otherwise, created or uploaded by our Users. "Your Content" is Content that you create.

B. Account Terms

Short version: A human must create your account; you must be 13 or over;
and you must provide a valid email address. You alone are responsible for your account and anything that happens while you are signed in to or using your account. You are responsible for keeping your account secure.

1. Required Information

You must provide a valid email address in order to complete the signup process. Any other information requested, such as your real name, is optional, unless you are accepting these terms on behalf of a legal entity (in which case we need more information about the legal entity).

2. Account Requirements

You must be a human to create an account. Accounts registered by "bots" or other automated methods are not permitted.

3. User Account Security

You are responsible for keeping your account secure while you use our Service. The content of your account and its security are up to you.

  • You are responsible for all content posted and activity that occurs under your account (even when content is posted by others who have accounts under your account).
  • You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password. Veripool cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation.

4. Additional Terms

In some situations, third parties' terms may apply to your use of Veripool. For example, you may be a member of an organization on Veripool with its own terms or license agreements; you may download an application that integrates with Veripool. Please be aware that while these Terms are our full agreement with you, other parties' terms govern their relationships with you.

C. Acceptable Use

Short version: Collaboration only works when our users are able to work together in good faith. While using the service, you must follow this Acceptable Use Policy, which includes some restrictions on content you can post, conduct on the service, and other limitations.

1. Compliance with Laws and Regulations

Your use of the Website and Service must not violate any applicable laws, including copyright or trademark laws, export control laws, or other laws in your jurisdiction. You are responsible for making sure that your use of the Service is in compliance with laws and any applicable regulations.

2. Content Restrictions

You agree that you will not under any circumstances upload, post, host, or transmit any content that:

  • is unlawful or promotes unlawful activities;
  • is or contains sexually obscene content;
  • is libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent;
  • is discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group;
  • contains or installs any active malware or exploits, or uses our platform for exploit delivery (such as part of a command and control system); or
  • infringes on any proprietary right of any party, including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, right of publicity, or other rights.

3. Conduct Restrictions

While using Veripool, you agree that you will not under any circumstances:

  • harass, abuse, threaten, or incite violence towards any individual or group, including Veripool employees, officers, and agents, or other Veripool Users;
  • use our servers for any form of excessive automated bulk activity (for example, spamming), or relay any other form of unsolicited advertising or solicitation through our servers, such as get-rich-quick schemes;
  • attempt to disrupt or tamper with Veripool's servers in ways that could harm our Website or Service, to place undue burden on Veripool's servers through automated means, or to access Veripool's Service in ways that exceed your authorization;
  • impersonate any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, including through false association with Veripool, or by fraudulently misrepresenting your identity or site's purpose; or
  • violate the privacy of any third party, such as by posting another person's personal information without consent.

4. Services Usage Limits

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without Veripool's express written permission.

5. Scraping

Scraping refers to extracting data from our Website via an automated process, such as a bot or webcrawler. You may scrape the website for the following reasons:

  • Researchers may scrape public, non-personal information from Veripool for research purposes, only if any publications resulting from that research are open access.
  • Archivists may scrape Veripool for public data for archival or indexing purposes.

You may not scrape Veripool for spamming purposes, including for the purposes of selling Veripool users' personal information, such as to recruiters, headhunters, and job boards.

All use of Veripool data gathered through scraping must comply with the link:privacy_statement[Privacy Statement].

6. Privacy

Misuse of Veripool Users' Personal Information is prohibited.

Any person, entity, or service collecting data from Veripool must comply with the link:privacy_statement[Privacy Statement], particularly in regards to the collection of our Users' Personal Information (as defined in the Privacy Statement). If you collect any Veripool User's Personal Information from Veripool, you agree that you will only use the Personal Information you gather for the purpose for which our User has authorized it. You agree that you will reasonably secure any Personal Information you have gathered from Veripool, and you will respond promptly to complaints, removal requests, and "do not contact" requests from Veripool or Veripool Users.

7. Excessive Bandwidth Use

If we determine your bandwidth usage to be significantly excessive in relation to other Veripool customers, we reserve the right to suspend your account or throttle your connection until you can reduce your bandwidth consumption.

8. User Protection

You agree not to engage in activity that significantly harms our Users. We will resolve disputes in favor of protecting our Users as a whole.

D. User-Generated Content

Short version: Copyright holders of repositories or programs available for download retain the copyright described in that program's license. Otherwise, by posint messages, issues or other content you grant us rights to use the material as we feel fit. We have the right to remove content or close accounts if we need to.

You may create or upload User-Generated Content while using the Service. You are solely responsible for the content of, and for any harm resulting from, any User-Generated Content that you post, upload, link to or otherwise make available via the Service, regardless of the form of that Content. We are not responsible for any public display or misuse of your User-Generated Content.

1. Veripool May Remove Content

We do not pre-screen User-Generated Content, but we have the right (though not the obligation) to refuse or remove any User-Generated Content that, in our sole discretion, violates any Veripool terms or policies.

2. Ownership of Content, Right to Post, and License Grants

Source code repositories and downloads are subject to the license described in the respective packages files, see Section D.5.

Otherwise, you grant Veripool the right to use any content you post as we feel fit. If you're posting anything you did not create yourself or do not own the rights to, you agree that you are responsible for any Content you post; that you will only submit Content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third party licenses relating to Content you post.

You understand that you will not receive any payment for any of the rights granted in Sections D.3 - D.6.

3. License Grant to Us

We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service. This includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.

4. License Grant to Other Users

Any User-Generated Content you post publicly, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others. You agree to allow others to view your posts. You grant each User of Veripool a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the Veripool Service and to reproduce Your Content (for example, by creating test cases as part of the programs developed under Veripool). If you are uploading Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other Veripool Users.

5. Contributions Under Repository License

Whenever you make a contribution to a repository containing notice of a license, you license your contribution under the same terms, and you agree that you have the right to license your contribution under those terms. If you have a separate agreement to license your contributions under different terms, such as a contributor license agreement, that agreement will supersede.

Isn't this just how it works already? Yep. This is widely accepted as the norm in the open-source community; it's commonly referred to by the shorthand "inbound=outbound". We're just making it explicit.

6. Moral Rights

To the extent this agreement is not enforceable by applicable law, you grant Veripool the rights we need to use Your Content without attribution and to make reasonable adaptations of Your Content as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service.

E. Intellectual Property Notice

Short version: We own the service and all of our content. In order for you to use our content, we give you certain rights to it, but you may only use our content in the way we have allowed.

1. Veripool's Rights to Content

Veripool and our licensors, vendors, agents, and/or our content providers retain ownership of all intellectual property rights of any kind related to the Website and Service. We reserve all rights that are not expressly granted to you under this Agreement or by law. Unless otherwise noted, the look and feel of the Website and Service is copyright Wilson Snyder <wsnyder@wsnyder.org>. All rights reserved. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS, Javascript, or visual design elements or concepts without express written permission from Veripool.

2. License to Veripool Policies

This Agreement is licensed under the Creative Commons Zero License.

F. Cancellation and Termination

Short version: You may close your account at any time.

1. Account Cancellation

To cancel your account with Veripool, contact Veripool Support <wsnyder@wsnyder.org>.

2. Upon Cancellation

We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements, but barring legal requirements, we will delete your full profile within 90 days of cancellation or termination (though some information may remain in encrypted backups). This information can not be recovered once your account is canceled.

We will not delete Content that you have contributed to messages, issues, source code repositories, etc, but they will no longer be attributed to your account.

Upon request, we will make a reasonable effort to provide an account owner with a copy of your lawful, non-infringing account contents after account cancellation, termination, or downgrade. You must make this request within 90 days of cancellation, termination, or downgrade.

3. Veripool May Terminate

Veripool has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. Veripool reserves the right to refuse service, to anyone for any reason at any time. Veripool reserves the right to remove user content from anyone for any reason at any time.

4. Survival

All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination will survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

G. Communications with Veripool

Short version: We use email and other electronic means to stay in touch with our users.

1. Electronic Communication Required

For contractual purposes, you (1) consent to receive communications from us in an electronic form via the email address you have submitted or via the Service; and (2) agree that all Terms of Service, agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that those communications would satisfy if they were on paper. This section does not affect your non-waivable rights.

3. No Phone Support

Veripool only offers support via email, in-Service communications, and electronic messages. We do not offer telephone support.

H. Disclaimer of Warranties

Short version: We provide our service as is, and we make no promises or guarantees about this service. Please read this section carefully; you should understand what to expect.

Veripool provides the Website and the Service "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind. Without limiting this, we expressly disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, regarding the Website and the Service including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, security, accuracy and non-infringement.

Veripool does not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements; that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; that the information provided through the Service is accurate, reliable or correct; that any defects or errors will be corrected; that the Service will be available at any particular time or location; or that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components. You assume full responsibility and risk of loss resulting from your downloading and/or use of files, information, content or other material obtained from the Service.

I. Limitation of Liability

Short version: We will not be liable for damages or losses arising from your use or inability to use the service or otherwise arising under this agreement. Please read this section carefully; it limits our obligations to you.

You understand and agree that we will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss of profits, use, goodwill, or data, or for any incidental, indirect, special, consequential or exemplary damages, however arising, that result from

  • the use, disclosure, or display of your User-Generated Content;
  • your use or inability to use the Service;
  • any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service;
  • the Service generally or the software or systems that make the Service available;
  • unauthorized access to or alterations of your transmissions or data;
  • statements or conduct of any third party on the Service;
  • any other user interactions that you input or receive through your use of the Service; or
  • any other matter relating to the Service.

Our liability is limited whether or not we have been informed of the possibility of such damages, and even if a remedy set forth in this Agreement is found to have failed of its essential purpose. We will have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond our reasonable control.

J. Release and Indemnification

Short version: You are responsible for your use of the service. If you harm someone else or get into a dispute with someone else, we will not be involved.

If you have a dispute with one or more Users, you agree to release Veripool from any and all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

You agree to indemnify us, defend us, and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of your use of the Website and the Service, including but not limited to your violation of this Agreement, provided that Veripool (1) promptly gives you written notice of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding; (2) gives you sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding (provided that you may not settle any claim, demand, suit or proceeding unless the settlement unconditionally releases Veripool of all liability); and (3) provides to you all reasonable assistance, at your expense.

K. Changes to These Terms

Short version: We want our users to be informed of important changes to our terms, but some changes aren't that important - we don't want to bother you every time we fix a typo. So while we may modify this agreement at any time, we will notify users of any changes that affect your rights and give you time to adjust to them.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to amend these Terms of Service at any time and will update these Terms of Service in the event of any such amendments. We will notify our Users of material changes to this Agreement, at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect by posting a notice on our Website. For non-material modifications, your continued use of the Website constitutes agreement to our revisions of these Terms of Service.

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Website (or any part of it) with or without notice.

L. Miscellaneous

1. Governing Law

Except to the extent applicable law provides otherwise, this Agreement between you and Veripool and any access to or use of the Website or the Service are governed by the federal laws of the United States of America and the laws of the State of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict of law provisions. You and Veripool agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts located in Massachusetts.

2. Non-Assignability

Veripool may assign or delegate these Terms of Service and/or the link:privacy_statement[Privacy Statement], in whole or in part, to any person or entity at any time with or without your consent, including the license grant in Section D.3. You may not assign or delegate any rights or obligations under the Terms of Service or Privacy Statement without our prior written consent, and any unauthorized assignment and delegation by you is void.

3. Section Headings and Summaries

Throughout this Agreement, each section includes titles and brief summaries of the following terms and conditions. These section titles and brief summaries are not legally binding.

4. Severability, No Waiver, and Survival

If any part of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion of the Agreement will be construed to reflect the parties' original intent. The remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. Any failure on the part of Veripool to enforce any provision of this Agreement will not be considered a waiver of our right to enforce such provision. Our rights under this Agreement will survive any termination of this Agreement.

5. Amendments; Complete Agreement

This Agreement may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorized representative of Veripool, or by the posting by Veripool of a revised version in accordance with "Section K. Changes to These Terms". These Terms of Service, together with the link:privacy_statement[Privacy Statement], represent the complete and exclusive statement of the agreement between you and us. This Agreement supersedes any proposal or prior agreement oral or written, and any other communications between you and Veripool relating to the subject matter of these terms including any confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements.

6. Questions

Questions about the Terms of Service? Email us at Veripool Support <wsnyder@wsnyder.org>.