Background

Background

On October 14, 2014, Agilent Technologies, Inc., announced that it would close its NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) businesses.

In an Open Letter to the NMR Community from Agilent on June 5, 2015, Agilent offered to provide free licensing of VnmrJ 4.2 for all applications, including the DOSY and CRAFT options.

At the request by many members of the NMR Community, Agilent also agreed to release the source code of VnmrJ 4.2 as “open source” by transfer of the copyright to an appropriate institutional recipient. The University of Oregon agreed to assume this role. On October 5, 2015, Agilent officials signed the transfer agreement, which was fully executed by the University of Oregon on October 8, 2015.

The open source version of VnmrJ will be known as “OpenVnmrJ”, and is a derivative of VnmrJ Version 4.2. The NMR community is indebted to Agilent, and in particular to Dan Iverson, for investing considerable effort in adapting the code of VnmrJ 4.2 for open source use. OpenVnmrJ is fully functional, suitable for use with all spectrometer systems supported by VnmrJ 4.2, and as a free-standing data application. However, users of OpenVnmrJ should be aware that installing and using it may limit your support options from Agilent – it is recommended that you retain copies of the version(s) of VnmrJ you obtained from Agilent for this purpose.

While Agilent retains the rights to VnmrJ 4.2 (and previous versions of VnmrJ), title to OpenVNMRJ is now owned by the University of Oregon.

University of Oregon contacts are:

Michael Strain, Director, CAMCOR NMR Facility,
University of Oregon  
mstrain@uoregon.edu, 541-346-4605  
(technical contact and liaison to VOSSG and NMR community)  

Charles Williams, Associate Vice President for Innovation,  
University of Oregon crw@uoregon.edu 541-346-2028  
(legal signatory & director of Technology Transfer office)  

The University of Oregon accepts ownership/custody of the OpenVnmrJ code for the benefit of the greater NMR community, and with the intention of facilitating its release to the world under appropriate open source license(s).

The University of Oregon acknowledges the external advisory body, the VnmrJ Open Source Steering Group (VOSSG), current members including:

    Tim Burrow, University of Toronto
    Dave Rice, Stanford University
    Eric Paulson, Yale University
    Scott Burt, Brigham Young University
    Walt Niemczura, University of Hawaii
    Mathias Nilsson, University of Manchester, UK
    Gareth Morris, University of Manchester, UK
    Craig Butts, University of Bristol, UK
    Steve McKenna, Ineos USA LLC
    Mark Maciejewski, University of Connecticut Health Center
    Michael Strain, University of Oregon
    Dan Iverson, Agilent
    Jonathan Gray, Agilent
    Josh Kurutz, Agilent
    John Vanarsdel, Agilent
    John Ryan, Agilent
    Dan Steel, Agilent
    Vince Stoyanov, Agilent

VOSSG will assist in determining the appropriate licensing terms for release of the code to the world, any additional licensing terms for contributors, and any other ground rules/expectations. Current members of VOSSG shall determine any additions or changes to VOSSG membership.

VOSSG will also take primary responsibility for maintaining the code, documentation, and for any modifications to OpenVnmrJ, via the OpenVnmrJ project on GitHub and/or any other method chosen by VOSSG.