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Researchers' Right To Open Source Research

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

bstadil writes: "There is an interesting debate over at SiliconValley.com about the right of researchers funded by Universities to make their IP Open Source. It's not at all simple. On one side Universities claiming their derive 5% of their Budget from IP licenses and it's vital for continued high level of 'Output,' on the other hand researcher who claim the public is billed twice by licensing the output."

4 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. where'd the funding come from? by anothy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    in my mind, the eventual disposition of the IP rights depend on where the funding for the research came from. in public institutions, like state schools, this should be clear: they're public institutions, funded by public money, so the public should get the benefits. that's simply an evolution of the original concept of public educations: we give money to educational institutions so society as a whole can benefit. in private institutions, it's less clear, since the public money (almost all private universities still get lots of public money) is usually a minority. but lots of big companies help fund research in public schools and still expect to get the results, and that doesn't make sense.

    --

    i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
  2. A division of income sources by erroneus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article doesn't address a pretty fundamental issue here.

    Where and how is public funding being used? Where and how is private funding being used? Where are the overlaps in this case?

    One could, of course, argue that since the research is being held within buildings paid for by public funds, using utilities paid for by public funds, that certainly the public holds an interest in all cases where such research is being carried out.

    Private interests have an interest in seeing the work completed and the institutions themselves have an interest in licensing fees coming back to them as well.

    This is a confusing problem. It's certainly not black and white now is it? If I were judge, however, I would rule in the public's interest. I view public funding as a moral obligation to return something to the public after accepting money from it. If private interests are allowed to influence where the results of research goes, then the private institution should be billed for the amount of public funds used during the course of the research.

    As for the institution itself charging license fees... wow... that's an interesting one isn't it. To that I would answer, YES! Charge license fees all you want, but only to private interests and not to public ones.

    Hrm... I'd say that was a fair assessment of this situation. If I were judge over this matter, I would rule in this way.

    HOWEVER... we know that's not what is likely to happen is it?

    Corporation A and B's lawyers will argue that public interests are served by providing a quality product for sale resulting from all of this research... :) Hyeah... get something for free and sell it back to us... yet that argument is made all the time and it makes sense to some judges in these cases. Bah!

  3. Computer Science should grow up. by EndersGame · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Computer science is a young field. We can produce papers and show one result without having to back them up with anything other than our word. _SOME_ computer scientists have the courage to put out their source, but now it sounds like the universities are pressuring them not to.

    Biology has a culture such that if you produce a new mutant line and write a paper about your discovery, ANYONE can ask you for your line. If you don't produce it, you will loose any respect you might have built up over the years. How do universities handle this?

    Let's just imagine if computer science was this way. If you produce a paper, you had to be willing to give the code. If someone took your code and found it wanton or you were unwilling to give up your code, it would be assumed that you faked it. Ouch! That would suck. It would certainly slow down our field, but I think at some point this should be the case.

  4. Commercially-oriented research is often crap by ab315 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A lot of what passes for commercial research is crap. For example, the stomach-ulcer drug "Zantac" was one of the biggest-selling drugs of all-time with billions of dollars in revenue. A perfect example of the commercial research model. Unfortunately the drug was complete crap, because all it did was treat the symptoms of stomach ulcers and not the cause, so you had to take it forever while the ulcers would silently get worse, requiring increasing doses. Of course, this is a great revenue generator -- the drug seems to work in trials, because it relieves the pain but somehow those patients just need to keep coming back for more. There was ONE guy in the world, a pathologist from New Zealand, who actually found out the real cause of many stomach ulcers -- a simple bacterial infection of the stomach that could be cured with cheap generic antibiotics. He spent twenty years trying to get the medical community to listen to him, but was completely ignored! After all he couldn't be right because Zantac was so successful! Standard treatment for ulcers today is testing for the bacteria (H.Pylori) and antibiotics.

    Commercial research maximises profits, not progress. People who make real breakthroughs won't be accepted in a commercial research model, because they don't conform to the norm -- after all if a researcher finds out that a billion-dollar drug is useless that is not going to look good for the university -- people have been killed for less. Any university which goes down that road is going to guarantee it ends up producing mediocre incremental advances. We don't need any more zantacs, we need smart people with intellectual freedom -- if we can't collectively afford that then we are doomed.