NetsBlox is a visual computer programming language targeted mainly at users ages 12-20, although everyone is welcome here. NetsBlox is an extension of Snap! and its design is deeply inspired by both Snap! and Scratch, a pioneering language and programming community for an overlapping but somewhat younger range of users, from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.
NetsBlox is provided by Vanderbilt University with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Our goal is to foster a friendly, welcoming, safe community of NetsBlox users. These Terms of Service have that goal in mind.
NetsBlox is free software. It is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, which permits unlimited use for any purpose by anyone, but does not allow proprietary modified versions of the software; if you make a modified version of NetsBlox, you must make it available under the same terms as our version, including the provision of source code.
(To download the NetsBlox source code, click on the NetsBlox icon in the top left corner of the programming page and choose "Download source.")
You do not have to have a user account or provide any personal information to use NetsBlox. (See our privacy policy for more details.)
You may not attempt to disrupt other people's use of this site, whether by denial of service attacks, accessing private data, or any other means. If you want to prove how clever you are, go pick on the CIA.
If you create an account on this site, you can store your NetsBlox projects on our cloud server. You can save projects privately, just for your own use, or you can share them publicly for any other user of our site to see.
We may establish limits on the total amount of storage you may use on our server. Also, our server is provided for the purpose of programming in NetsBlox; you may not store media (e.g., your entire music library) not intended for use in programming projects.
If you share projects publicly, then you must abide by additional rules:
Anything you share is available to other users for any purpose, including the sharing of modified versions of your projects. By sharing a project, you are agreeing to license it under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. (Fine print: If you want your project to be considered "free software" then you should waive the "NonCommercial" part of the license, but we do not impose this choice on you.) This license also applies to any media (images, sounds, etc.) you share on this site.
If you do use someone else's work in creating your project, you should give them credit for it, in your project notes.
Our community includes children, and people of all cultures, religions, political views, and so on. You may not share anything that could reasonably be considered offensive to others. We reserve the right to revoke the shared status of anything that, in our sole judgment, is offensive to our community standards. (There is a fine line between the free expression of ideas, which we encourage, and offensiveness, which we don't. You can argue with us through our contact page, but by using this site you agree that our judgement is final.) In case of repeated violations, we may remove your account entirely.
In particular, you may not share anything that is illegal in the United States of America, where our servers are located, including pornography and hate speech as defined by US law.
Also in particular, you may not share anything that insults or attacks other users of the site. Put yourself in the other person's shoes before you post any comments about anyone else.
You may not share any material copyrighted by someone else. We are required by law to remove any such material if we are given proper notice under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (See here to notify us of a violation.)
Finally, please do not share any personally identifiable information (such as your name, address, birthday, etc.) in your projects.
BY USING THIS SITE OR THE NETSBLOX SOFTWARE, YOU AGREE THAT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PROVIDES ANY WARRANTY WHATSOEVER, since the services are provided at no cost. This includes the possibility of damage to your computer.
(We do not think that there is any significant chance of damage to your computer, including its software and data, even if you download other people's shared projects. NetsBlox is implemented within your browser using Javascript, which was designed with security restrictions on what any Javascript program, including NetsBlox, can do. Most web sites use Javascript, and if a security hole should ever turn up in Javascript, the bad guys will attack popular sites such as cnn.com or google.com long before they get around to us. Still, if there's ever a problem with Javascript, it won't be under our control and we can't take responsibility for it. Note: Despite the name, Javascript is unrelated to Java, which has had security problems, but is not used by our site.)
A less severe but more likely problem is that if you program in NetsBlox from a mobile device using a cellular network, you may run over your data plan's limit and incur large usage fees from your carrier. We're not responsible for that, either. Get on a Wifi network before you start programming!