Terms of Use: Licensing, Citations & Liability Protocols

Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using PRACSYS pages, code, datasets, or documentation, you agree to follow the protocols below.

Treat our repositories and write-ups the way you would treat a lab instrument manual: read the constraints first, then build on top of them. If you do not agree, do not use the materials.

These terms apply to use via the website, mirrored copies, and any redistributed bundles that preserve PRACSYS attribution.

Intellectual Property & Open Source Licensing

PRACSYS materials may include a mix of original work and third-party components; the license that ships with each artifact controls what you can do with it.

Code repositories and downloadable packages should include a license file (for example, in the repository root). That file governs copying, modification, distribution, and patent-related terms. If a component has its own license header or a NOTICE file, keep it intact when you redistribute.

Some artifacts are research prototypes. Others are wrappers around upstream libraries. When you combine them, you inherit obligations from both sides, including attribution and source-availability requirements where applicable.

• Respect per-repo licensing: do not assume a single license covers the entire site.
• Preserve notices: keep copyright statements, license headers, and attribution files.
• Mark your changes: if you publish a modified version, document what you changed and when.

Academic Citation Requirements

If PRACSYS materials influence your published work, cite the relevant paper, technical report, or repository entry—not just the homepage.

Two patterns appear in the wild: (1) a method is used as a baseline, and (2) a method is adapted and becomes part of a new pipeline. In both cases, citations should point to the most specific artifact you relied on (algorithm description, dataset release, or versioned code).

When a repository provides a citation file (for example, CITATION.cff) or a "How to cite" section, follow it. If multiple PRACSYS artifacts are used, cite each one that materially affects results, especially when reporting benchmarks or ablations.

Limitations of Experimental Software

PRACSYS includes experimental algorithms and prototype implementations; you assume responsibility for validation, safety engineering, and compliance in your environment.

Autonomous systems fail in boring ways: a unit mismatch, a stale map, a planner that silently times out, a controller that saturates. Those failures can become physical hazards when you move from simulation to hardware. Treat any provided code as a starting point, not a finished safety case.

Unless a specific repository states otherwise, PRACSYS materials are provided "as is" without warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. PRACSYS is not liable for damages arising from use, misuse, or inability to use the materials, including in safety-critical contexts.

Methodology note: performance and stability can shift with sensor noise models, actuator limits, and environment dynamics; results that look clean in one lab setup may not transfer unchanged.

Governance & Contact

We update these terms when our publication and release practices change; continued use after updates indicates acceptance of the revised terms.

If you need clarification on licensing boundaries, citation targets, or redistribution, contact us before you publish or ship. The fastest path is to include the specific repository name, the file(s) in question, and how you plan to use them.