MERGE / merge-cli — Academic Use Only Licence
=============================================

Copyright (c) 2026 The MERGE Project Team
Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU)

This licence covers the merge-cli software, the bundled MERGE ensemble model
files (merge_cli/data/models/MERGE_*.pkl) and the accompanying documentation
(collectively, "the Software").

1. GRANT

   Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person affiliated with
   an academic, educational or non-profit research institution to use, copy and
   modify the Software solely for non-commercial academic research and teaching
   purposes, subject to the conditions below.

2. CONDITIONS

   a. This licence and the above copyright notice must be included in all
      copies or substantial portions of the Software.
   b. Any publication or public presentation of results obtained with the
      Software must cite the MERGE paper and the MERGE web server
      (https://merge.fanglab.cn).
   c. Modified versions must be clearly marked as such and must not be
      represented as the original Software.

3. RESTRICTIONS

   a. Commercial use is not permitted. This includes, without limitation, use
      by or on behalf of a for-profit entity, use in fee-based or contract
      services, incorporation into a commercial product or service, and use in
      the production of results sold or licensed to third parties. For
      commercial licensing, contact the authors.
   b. Redistribution of the Software or the bundled model files as part of
      another product or service requires prior written permission.

4. NOT FOR CLINICAL USE

   The Software is a research prototype. It is NOT a medical device, has not
   been clinically validated, and has not been approved or cleared by any
   regulatory authority. It must NOT be used for diagnosis, prognosis,
   treatment decisions, genetic counselling, or any other clinical or
   patient-facing purpose. Variant interpretation remains the responsibility of
   qualified professionals following established guidelines such as ACMG/AMP.

5. THIRD-PARTY COMPONENTS

   The Software orchestrates external foundation models, reference databases
   and web services (including AlphaGenome, Enformer, Evo2, Carbon, GENERATOR,
   Nucleotide Transformer, HyenaDNA, AlphaMissense, ESM-1b, GPN-MSA and
   dbNSFP), each governed by its own licence and terms of use, some of which
   are non-commercial. Nothing in this licence grants any right to those
   components; the user is responsible for obtaining them and for complying
   with their terms.

6. NO WARRANTY

   THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
   IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
   FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
   AUTHORS, THE MERGE PROJECT TEAM OR THEIR INSTITUTIONS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
   CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
   OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE
   USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Contact: chenyanggza01@163.com / fangli9@mail.sysu.edu.cn
