MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING, 1998
between the National (Hydro)Meteorological Services of
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Hungary,
Moldavia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia , and Slovenia
concerning the Limited Area Spectral Numerical Weather Prediction System
named «ALADIN» (short for ARPEGE(IFS)/ALADIN), valid for four
years after its initial signing by eleven of the Partners in Paris on 25/11/96
updated version, adopted at the third Assembly of Partners in Prague
on 6/11/98
The ALADIN project was
launched back in November 1990 when Météo-France proposed to
six National (Hydro)Meteorological Services (NMSs) of Central and Eastern
Europe to jointly develop, improve and maintain a Limited Area version of the
ARPEGE(IFS) global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) software.
In September 1991 the effective work started with the
participation of seven NMSs (Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France,
Hungary, Poland and Romania). In November 1993 three new Partners joined in
(Morocco, Slovakia and Slovenia) and in April 1995 two other Partners
completed the team (Croatia and Spain). Belgium and Moldavia were entering the
project at the time of signing of the initial MoU. Partners already
participating in the project or admitted into it at that time and having
technical problems for an immediate signing of the MoU (Moldavia, Morocco and
Spain) had six months to regularise their situation, time during which they
were not submitted to the selection procedure mentioned later in Section 6.
Spain finally decided to withdraw from the project and only Moldavia and
Morocco regularised their signing. Portugal, that was candidate to enter the
project at the time of signing of the initial MoU, was regularly admitted in
April 1997. Hence, this updated version has been unanimously approved by
fourteen Partners.
Despite the fact that operational aims could not be exactly
the same for all Partners, the informal agreement that helped to maintain a
successful dynamics for the project did not need updating or revision for the
five years before the initial signing of the MoU.
At that time several evolutions made it necessary to get a
minimum of formalisation around the project. Let it immediately be clarified
that this formalisation was not aimed at modifying the principles that had
successfully been obeyed up to then but at creating a protecting environment
for their further application.
The reasons that were pleading for the signing of a MoU (and
are still fully valid) were the following:
- (i) the code was undergoing a transition from quasi-operational to
pre-operational status at roughly the same time for five applications, one of
them being already subject to a contractual agreement between
Météo-France, RC-LACE (NMSs of Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary,
Slovakia and Slovenia) and ZAMG for pre-operational running of an ALADIN-LACE
application in Toulouse. It is understood that the concerned Partners did
verify that no contradiction existed between the MoU and the above-mentioned agreement,
- (ii) up to then the common intellectual property around the ALADIN code
was protected by its «machine dependency» and by the «dead
branch» character of its preliminary workstation versions; when the
so-called Cycle 6 of the ALADIN library was created (May 1997) this implicit
protection disappeared and
- (iii) it was (and still is) likely that several new NMSs will ask to join
the ALADIN project in the future, at a time when the recomposition of the NWP
«geography» is a constant subject of concern for NMSs' management
inside the ALADIN group as well as outside it, in particular in the framework
of the so-called Short Range Numerical Weather Prediction (SRNWP) network,
under the umbrella of EUMETNET.
However this MoU is not dealing with such technical aspects
like computing resources and telecommunications, since it is thought that
those cannot be dealt with at the level of all ALADIN Partners.
All other questions raised by the application of this MoU
(and more generally the maintenance of the momentum and the preservation of
the spirit of the project) are treated by an «Assembly
of Partners» (the difference to a Council being that this Assembly
has to tackle directly -i.e. without Committees- all types of problems linked
to its duties) that meets at yearly intervals in one of the Partners country.
The composition of this Assembly may depend on the problems to be tackled at
one given meeting, but delegates need to be entrusted by their Directions for
their participation. Extraordinary meetings may be conveyed under unanimous
agreement of the Partners.
The main tasks of the «Assembly of Partners» are:
- to verify the correct application of the present MoU by all Partners;
- to review past actions since its last meeting;
- to discuss the research objectives of the project, to register and to
monitor the manpower commitments of all Partners for the realisation of these objectives;
- - to maintain a consensus on the main issues related to the project;
- to initiate additional actions favouring the project;
- to try and solve potential conflicts between Partners.
In particular, the second Assembly of Partners in Brussels on
5/12/97 agreed that all rules concerning the exchange and possible sell of
ALADIN numerical products are superseded by humanitarian considerations in
case of emergency situations (like the Central European flooding of July 97 or
the forest fire consequences around Indonesia in fall 97), this remaining true
only for a limited period of time.
Météo-France assumes free of charge the
Secretariat outside the meetings of the «Assembly of Partners»,
through provision of the necessary manpower for accomplishing the actions
linked to the existence of this MoU and to the decisions of the Assembly.
- A) The ARPEGE(IFS)/ALADIN code is the common intellectual property of all
NMSs, hereafter called the "Partners", which contribute to its
evolution according to the rules of the present MoU. The definition of this
code corresponds to the ensemble of routines necessary to run the various
configurations of ARPEGE(IFS)/ALADIN. Hence this definition does not encompass
ancillary external pre- or post-processing tools. If necessary (perhaps soon
in the case of remote sensed data pre-processing) an amendment to the present
MoU could enlarge the above definition of the code. The use of the
ARPEGE(IFS)/ALADIN code is reserved (free of charge) to those Partners and in
any case it cannot be sold to any third party. Through a software agreement
about to be signed with Météo-France (concerning the access to
and use of the IFS/ARPEGE software and appended «E») ECMWF grants
access to the whole of the IFS/ARPEGE software (including the
«strategic» parts listed in Annex 2
of the mentioned agreement) for all ALADIN Partners, provided this access
will not be used by ALADIN non ECMWF Member- or Co-operating-States to run
routinely a global model/data assimilation system. An invitation to ECMWF to
attend as observer the Assembly of Partners and an exchange with ECMWF in
terms of scientific results (for all ALADIN Partners and via
Météo-France) are implied. Under all these conditions, there is
no restricted access to any part of the ALADIN software for any Partner. In
other words: «Un pour tous, tous pour un» !
- B) Each Partner dedicates a significant part of its NWP and/or modelling
human potential to the above-mentioned Research and Development (R&D) and
Maintenance tasks on and around the code; in order to clearly identify those
tasks (apart from direct work on the code), enhancement of diagnostic tools
specifically related to the ALADIN results or downstream adaptation procedures
linked to the ALADIN products are considered inside this category of work, but
routine validation of forecasts or «black-box-type» use of the code
are not. The target amounts of this involvement are discussed every year
during the meeting of the «Assembly of Partners».
- C) Each Partner shall have operational activities or plans for a priority
operational application of ALADIN for short range high resolution NWP now or
in a foreseeable future. The choice of domains and resolutions of such
applications should be complementary of those of the ARPEGE(IFS) (or
intermediate ALADIN) coupling data which use is recommended for scientific and
technical reasons: compatibility of the models (in fact it is difficult to
work on ALADIN without working on ARPEGE(IFS)) and significant work needed in
any case for interfacing with other large scale models and for maintaining
such an interface. Development and maintenance of such potential new
interfaces should therefore happen outside the ALADIN Project, under the
responsibility of the interested Partners and for applications limited to
operational backup and R&D purposes.
- D) The principle of evolution of the «ALADIN library» is the
regular (about every six to nine months) post-phasing with the Cycles of the
IFS/ARPEGE library. All Partners have automatic access to all new developments
included in these phasing actions but it is up to them to make the necessary
efforts to see their own developments enter the library. This principle is the
absolutely necessary complement of principle 2A.
- E) The R&D work around ALADIN is conducted in the respect of the
general scientific deontological rules and furthermore follows the guidelines
of the SRNWP network for the Partners involved in this network (specific
reporting inside the focal points system for a balance between collaboration
and competition between the four participating groups to SRNWP,
standardisation, participation to EWGLAM-SRNWP annual meetings with some
mention of the belonging to the ALADIN action, ...).
- F) The planning of future R&D ALADIN actions is conducted by informal
means under the control of the «Assembly of Partners» and aims at
building a consensus between the opinions of the individual experts of all
Partners. The existence of more and more individual applications of ALADIN
slightly complicates the further application of this principle. On the other
hand, a more diversified R&D around the code always brings additional
benefits to all Partners, provided principle 2D thereabove is obeyed with
strict discipline.
In order to facilitate the definition of the ALADIN system,
the relevant software encompasses (i) for access and protection rules, the
union of the IFS/ARPEGE and ALADIN libraries at all existing Cycles and (ii)
for use rules, the strict limitation of the former to the parts necessary to
run existing ALADIN configurations (1, 701, 923 and 927 from the operational
point of view at the time of the signing of the updated version of the MoU).
While the applications based on this second definition of the software may
have different names, the main body (code, system or model) must always be
referred to as «ALADIN».
- A) When the problem is to use ALADIN for R&D purposes, even outside
the framework of NWP operational use for which it has been designed, each
Partner is free to use it for itself, without referring in advance to the others.
- B) In the same case as «A» but with another organisation in the
country of the Partner or with the NMS of a (ECMWF Member- or
Co-operating-State) non participating country being involved through an
official research agreement, the same rule applies provided that: (i) the
other Partners are informed beforehand and (ii) the other involved
organisation formally agrees to limit itself to R&D purposes and to follow
all intellectual property and software protection rules binding the Partners
(rules 2A/D/E thereabove and 5C thereafter). The case of a non NMS demand in a
(ECMWF Member- or Co-operating-State) non participating country requires
unanimous acceptance by the Partners and has to be dealt through the channel
of the Permanent Representative of this country with WMO under the same two
conditions as just mentioned.
- C) Otherwise, no collaboration is allowed with any (NMS or other)
institution of a non participating and neither ECMWF Member nor ECMWF
Co-operating country. Such type of work, if envisaged, would only become
possible through adhesion of the relevant NMS to the ALADIN Project, under the
conditions stated in Section 6.
- D) In case of operational use generating financial returns to one of the
Partners, there will be financial transfer between the Partners only in the
case of exportation of products or services based on the use of ALADIN. Each
Partner thus has full rights for national use of the software and selling of
products and services. In case of shared use of the software for operational
applications (as realised in RC-LACE and envisaged in SELAM), it is expected
that internal problems to the supra-national entity have been solved
independently and this rule 4D then only applies for exportation of products
or services and for financial transfers outside this entity. Appendix
«A» to the present MoU fixes the rules governing the possible
financial transfers.
- E) ALADIN Partners are committed to prevent any commercial activities,
directly or indirectly based on operational use of the ALADIN software, on the
territory of any other Partner without the explicit agreement of the latter.
More generally, all ALADIN operational products exchanged internationally
outside the European Union are considered as additional products in reference
with the Resolution 40 of WMO Congress XII, and thus submitted to the
conditions agreed in common listed in Appendix
"D" , and taking into account Paragraph 4D and Appendix
"A". Concerning the second and third rules of Appendix
"A", it is understood that such a dissemination which could be made
by a Partner will be made only with the unanimous agreement of other Partners,
and on behalf of all Partners which will be together considered as the
Originator of the products.
Each of the undersigned parties to this Memorandum of Understanding
hereby agrees:
- A) to dedicate a significant part of its manpower in NWP and modelling to
the common project (research, development, maintenance, verification tools,
application software) without any individual proprietary right for the results
of those actions. Once negotiated between all Partners, the amount of
involvement promised by each Partner becomes a commitment. Concerning the
rules of recording, the initial state was provided by the appended
"B" unofficial record of Météo-France of all ALADIN
actions, in Toulouse and elsewhere, since the beginning of the project,
updated at 25/11/1996 (date of signing of the initial MoU). The further
evolution of the records is monitored by all Partners within the procedure
fixing the commitments (accordingly the second part of Appendix
«B» provides the equivalent status at the time of signing the
updated version of the MoU). Appendix
"C" to the present MoU precises the rules for these yearly
commitment/monitoring actions;
- B) to include in the previously defined manpower commitment its own
responsibility for the further maintenance of developments it has been
promoting in the past;
- C) to make every necessary effort to prevent unauthorised dissemination of
the ALADIN software and of its IFS/ARPEGE associated parts, whatever might be
the purpose of this dissemination. In particular, in case of benchmark or of
use of external computing resources for running the ALADIN code, the Partners
must sign a non-dissemination and restricted-use agreement with the provider
of computing resources. This agreement must be presented to any Partner as
well as to ECMWF, if required;
- D) to aim at having (now or in a foreseeable future) ALADIN as priority
operational tool for short range high resolution NWP daily applications;
- E) to strictly comply to the «Conditions of use of the ALADIN
software» defined thereabove in Section 4;
- F) in case of future withdrawal from the project, not to take advantage of
its former participation for actions that could be detrimental to the
remaining Partners or to ECMWF;
- G) to participate to the SRNWP network activities in coordination with the
other ALADIN Partners, for Partners who are members of this SRNWP network;
- H) to take part in the preparation of applications to the Commission of
the European Union or any other international source of financing for funding
of research and/or operational actions concerning ALADIN;
- I) more generally, to work for the continued application to the ALADIN
project of principles of Section 2, Paragraphs A to F and to publicise what it
considers to be the success of this endeavour, nationally and internationally.
The above-mentioned principles and the «ALADIN
spirit» are clearly against making the ALADIN project a «closed
membership club». On the other hand, the project has reached a status
(the one that made this MoU necessary) that forbids that entry to the
«club» could depend only on the willingness of the newcomer to do
so. In particular, if there exist shared application ventures or shared
research actions between some Partners (like currently in the RC-LACE and
SELAM cases) no third party will be allowed to join these shared ventures or
actions before having been accepted as a new ALADIN Partner. Furthermore, the
application of the appended «E» software agreement between ECMWF and
Météo-France about IFS/ARPEGE and the need to have an equal
access of all ALADIN Partners to the software used for R&D and/or
operations inside the ALADIN project, make it necessary to get ECMWF's
agreement (that would not be unreasonably withheld and that might depend on a
decision by the ECMWF Council) for any further adhesion.
Hence the undersigned Partners agree to fix the following adhesion rules:
- A) written proposal of the potential new Partner by at least one of the
current Partners to all others, the proposal stating what would be the
specific scientific and operational position of the new Partner in case of
acceptance as well as ECMWF's position with respect to the planned adhesion
(relatively to the application of the appended «E» IFS/ARPEGE
software agreement), in case the potential new Partner is neither from an
ECMWF Member State nor from an ECMWF Co-operating State;
- B) in particular, the new Partner should be in a geographical situation
allowing to get dense enough Lateral Boundary Conditions (LBC) in principle
either directly from ARPEGE or via an internationally oriented intermediate
action; if necessary, this provision of LBC should become a written commitment
of the relevant Partner(s);
- C) signed acceptance by the new Partner of all commitments linked to the
present MoU in case it enters the «club»;
- D) absence of veto by more than one third of the current Partners or by a
group of Partners having contributed to the project in a proportion higher
than one third (the latter rule, that is meant to protect the interest of the
Partners having born the highest share of the development efforts since the
beginning of the project, has to be applied according to the above mentioned
manpower amounts in their latest validated version). The vetoes should be
expressed less than 45 days after reception by the Secretariat of the letter
of proposal, by one of the current Partners, of the potential new Partner.
The spirit of the ALADIN project also forbids to impose any
membership. On the other hand, signing of the present MoU, by current and
future Partners, represents a commitment which fulfilment has to be somehow verified.
Hence the undersigned Partners agree to fix the following withdrawal rules:
- A) any Partner is free to quit the ALADIN «club»; however if it
is part of a joint operational venture (or action) around the ALADIN system,
it will have to solve the associated problems with the other participants to
this venture (or action), beforehand. The same applies if it is part of a LBC
operational provision agreement.
- B) if it becomes clear that one of the Partners does not any more fulfil
the conditions established by the present MoU, its belonging to the
«club» can be terminated, with loss of any anterior rights should it
reapply in the future (this obviously also applies to the previous case), if
the «default of participation» is recognised by more than two thirds
of the other Partners representing more than two thirds of the manpower
contribution as defined in the rules for adhesion.
- C) the above-mentioned loss of anterior rights does not apply to the use
of the code in its latest version at the time of withdrawal (at least for the
parts not listed in Annex 2 of the appended
«E» IFS/ARPEGE software agreement), provided the withdrawing Partner
has been participating for at least three years in the project. However, use
of the name «ALADIN» will not be allowed for the further use of this
«frozen» version of the code.
The present MoU may be amended following the proposal of one
(or several) Partner(s), under the condition of unanimous acceptance of the
amendment by the other Partners and provided that the amendments do not
contradict the appended «E» IFS/ARPEGE software agreement between
ECMWF and Météo-France.
All disputes or differences arising out or in connection with
the present agreement shall, failing any agreement to settle it amicably
concluded by all parties within thirty days from the receipt of a registered
letter by the plaintiff to the other parties, be finally settled under the
Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce
by one sole arbitrator appointed in accordance with the said Rules.
The place of arbitration shall be Paris and the French
procedure law on international arbitration shall apply.
The arbitrator may rule as "amiable compositeur".
