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Several years ago I worked for a NASA project called the National Technology Transfer Center. A big part of the job there is organizing and searching through tens of thousands of pages of research documents. They used a document oriented database at the time although they may have migrated to something else since then. You might want to contact them for advice.

A friend of mine was the person primarily responsible for scanning in the documents. IIRC, the process involved OCR of the scans for key word search and indexing and then storing a compressible graphic image of the page - this got them around the problem of text databases not storing technical drawings, etc.

1. Who gets the fees and how much?
   
   
2. NTTC says "Open Channel Software (OCS) is an Internet-based organization that publishes, distributes and commercializes software created at academic and research institutions"
   
   
3. NTTC describes themselves as a "research commericialization center."
   
   
4. What are we paying tax dollars for if we have to pay to use the products of Federally Funded research? I thought the whole point of federally funded research was to do the jobs that typically wouldn't be undertaken in a commercial environment. Now these Special-Interest Groups (SIGs) and lobbyists are trying to sell-out the system. What gives? By the way, I work in a federally funded security research lab, so I have a basic idea of how the 'System' works.
   
   

1. Research is done with public funding
2. Research goes to the National Technology Transfer Center or some other tech transfer organization
3. Research is then "licensed" to company X
4. Company X repackages the research and then sells it back to the public

This model works well for company X because it can take someone else's research, paid for with public funds, and then sell it back to the public and the government. WOOHOO, FREE STUFF!

Now in this model, both the public and the researchers/developers get screwed. The public gets screwed because they are paying twice for the work. The researchers/developers get screwed because they see their years of work lining someone else's pockets and not contributing freely to the public good.

Under the GPL, company X cannot steal other peoples research without contributing to the public good. If the work is by definition free and open, company X cannot get semi-exclusive licensing rights. Given this, if X makes "BIG MONEY" repackaging the research, then all kinds of companies will crop up to get a cut. Eventually profit margins become minimal and X tries to figure out some other way to expl^H^H^H^H make money.

So in essence, if your business model is "BE THE BIGGEST PIMP", then the GPL is not your friend. However, if you are a researcher/developer or the public as a whole, then it's kinda nice not to get whored.

You have to understand this quote from a "Captain of Industry" perspective. The relationship between the government and industry in terms of new technology has traditionally been that the government serves as a "free" R&D shop for industry. New technologies developed by the government make it into the public domain by being licensed/given to industry to then sell to the public (see the National Technology Transfer Center's site). What Ballmer is saying is that if the government releases new technology under some sort of open-licensing scheme, then anyone can use this technology, and any future enhancements will have to remain in the public domain. So from his perspective, this quote makes sense. If the government releases work under and open-licensing model, then the work of government scientists will not be available to people who wish to exclusively license the rights to someone else's research and then profit from selling this other person's work to the world.

All in all it's a funny system. You the taxpayer pay government scientists to do research and develop technology X. The government then licenses technology X to company Y. Company Y then packages technology X as product Z. Company Y then sells you and the government product Z (the product you already paid to the government to develop).

To get through the tenure and promotion system you need grants and lots of publications. I have colleagues who literally could not care less about their students. The Deans and administrative types promote them with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge," because they bring in money and prestige from a small academic community. I would not send my own kids to a land grant institution and would encourage them to go to a smaller institution.

As far as resources to publish, it does take a lot. For each paper the publishers have to find reviewers. They have to check up on the ones who are late in filing reviews. They have to decide what parts the reviewers got right and what they got wrong. They have to make sure that revisions are sent back to reviewers and broker disputes. The process of putting together and preparing an article is very difficult. If you think my grammar is bad, you should see some of the stuff coming from people just learning to speak this whacked out language.

Completely off topic... but...
rant on
I saw someone on this board saying that MIT should be commended for putting their education materials on the web. MIT is the worst place to go if you are looking for an education. They produce research and create a place for smart students to be together. This is nice, but the last thing they should be commended for is what happens in their classrooms.

Also, they are the place that pioneered ways to take advantage of the Bayh-Dole Act to seek patents and royalties for things created using public money.

rant off

"The Administration shall provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." -National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958

"The Administration shall provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." -National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958

(Someplace called NTTC claims to have COSMIC, but their web site only has obscure titles without descriptions or archives)