The third ALADIN Memorandum of Understanding was signed on October 21st, 2005 during the 10th ALADIN Assembly in Bratislava. It is valid for at least 5 years after signature (i.e. October 2010). It defines :

the purposes and objectives agreed by the Parties for ALADIN cooperation
the condition of membership, the rights and obligations of the members
the governance and the management : General Assembly (with its Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson), Program Manager, Policy Advisory Committee, ALADIN Local Teams Managers, Program Team, Committee for Scientific and System/maintenance Issues, System/maintenance and Scientific Coordinators, Support Team
the co-operations
the resources : manpower and ALADIN Annual Budget
the information exchange within the Members and towards users
ownership and property rights
the conditions for access to and implementation to the ALADIN system
ownership, availability and commercialisation of ALADIN products
...

Please consult the complete document for details.

2nd Memorandum of Understanding - 2001

The second ALADIN Memorandum of Understanding was signed on May 31st. It is valid for four years and a half, till the end of November 2005. The main changes are :

an enlarged definition of the ALADIN partnership, with three levels of "rights versus duties" : Full Member, Associated Member, User;
more precise guidelines for the commercial use of ALADIN products;
stricter rules for the registration of the manpower dedicated to ALADIN;
creation of a Technical Cooperation Standing Committee (TCSC) of for members (Météo-France, a LACE representative, a SELAM representative, a representative of the other partners), in charge of the routine project coordination for technical issues.

Please consult the complete document for details.

Amendments to the 1st MoU - 1998

During the 3rd Assembly of ALADIN Partners, some amendments to the ALADIN MoU were discussed and approved by the Assembly. Main accepted modifications are :

regarding the access to ALADIN code for institutions which were neither ALADIN participating Partners, nor from an ECMWF Member, nor from an ECMWF Co-operating country, it was decided : no rule of exception but regulation of new problems by the amended mechanism for full adhesion;
the case of code benchmarks was specifically added to the non-dissemination and restricted-use rules;
regarding the "Commitment and monitoring of manpower associated to the ALADIN Project" : a third category of work for reporting ("Prague-LACE" in addition to "Toulouse" and "at Home") and applying of strict deadline and using single contact points were agreed upon.

Please consult the complete document for details.

1st MoU - 1996

In 1996, the evolutions of the ALADIN project made it necessary to get a minimum of formalization around the project in order to keep it as succeeful as it had been during the first five years.

The MoU was born.

It first recalled the current principles guiding research, development and maintenance of ALADIN (more precisely ARPEGE/ALADIN, to recall the interdependency of the two systems).

Then, it precised the conditions of use of the ALADIN software.

Conditions of membership to the ALADIN project, conditions of adhesion to the ALADIN project and conditions of withdrawal from the ALADIN project are then defined.

All details and complete document in the Minutes of the 1st Assembly of ALADIN Partners.