What is the copyright?
Ptolemy II is released under the fairly liberal UC Berkeley copyright, see http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptIIcopyright.htm Most files have the copyright at the top. Ptolemy II is free for academic and commercial use. You an incorporate it into products, but you need to include follow the instructions in the copyright notice. This copyright is based on the Tcl copyright that was used when Prof. Ousterhout was developing Tcl here at UC Berkeley. This copyright was also used in Ptolemy Classic, which has been used in commercial products, see http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/archive/links.
The copyright is a modified BSD license, where only two first paragraphs remain out of the original four. The text of copyright is present is almost all files of the toolkit. I’d like to contribute. You can do this is several ways. The project would probably best benefit from the advocacy, because not many people use it. Of course, you can send in new widgets, patches, suggestions, or even donations. Also, documentation is the thing that needs a particular attention, since my native language is not English, so if there are volunteers for polishing of the Prima docs, you are very welcome.
