Outline of ICOT Free Software

[Purposes and Background of ICOT Free Software]

The Institute for New Generation Computer Technology ("ICOT") had been promoting the Fifth Generation Computer Systems project under the commitment of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan (the "MITI"). Since April 1993, ICOT has been promoting the Follow-on project to the FGCS project. This follow-on project aims to disseminate and further develop FGCS technology. The FGCS project and the Follow-on project (collectively, the "Project") have been aimed at creating basic technology for novel computers that realizes parallel inference processing as their core mechanism, and contributing toward the progress of computer science by sharing innovative knowledge and technology with the research community worldwide.

Innovative hardware and software parallel inference technology has been under development through the Project, which involves varieties of advanced software for experiments and evaluation. This software, being at a basic stage of research and development, should be disseminated widely to the research community.

According to the aims of the Project, ICOT has made this software, the copyright of which does not belong to the government but to ICOT itself, available to the public in order to contribute to the world, and, moreover, has removed all restrictions on its usage that may have impeded further research and development in order that large numbers of researchers can use it freely to begin a new era of computer science.

This program together with any attached documentation (collectively, the "Program") is being distributed by ICOT free of charge as ICOT Free Software.