Free as in Marketable?

An anonymous reader asks: "I work in IT at a research university. A few of my co-workers and I are in the process of planning a piece of software that we would like to release to the public under the GPL license, but we're running into issues with our "intellectual property" office which thinks we have a potentially marketable product. We would rather give the product away for free and see our university get some credit for the product. How have others dealt with this problem? It's a shame that money is more important to a research school than sharing research with others."

Comments

Non-Commercial Use

[MBCook]

What about putting it under something else than the GPL? What about puttting it under a license that makes it free for non-commercial and educational use but requires payment if used in a commercial setting or sold? That would probably keep the suits happy.

Yeah, it sucks...

[RevAaron]

Sure, it sucks, but what do you expect? Research universities are all about the money- why do you think they're so well funded? Why do you think they do that research? Because they do research that in some percentage of the time produces something they can make a return on. Universities don't get rich off that 48.5% they get in overhead off an NSF grant... Yes, that pays the bills, but project commercialization and subsequent profit is what pays for expansion of programs and physical conquest as well as for all the non-profitable research going on.

It seems like shitty thing, especially when you're youngue and impressionable- an undergrad or master's student with her head full of ideas about Freedom and Information Equality. I wish it was that way, but most people aren't willing to fund science for its own sake- they want a return on that investment.

not necessarily opposed

[ubiquitin]

Just because a project/product is GPL doesn't mean that you can't market it. There are lots of business models behind open source software, just ask the folks at RedHat or Zend. Lowering the barriers to adoption by making distribution essentially free (cost of bandwidth) and no up-front expense is a great marketing tool, actually. Ask your university's marketroid advocates the following question: would RedHat and/or PHP be here today and be the most popular tools of their kind, if they had to reach their userbase by traditional marketing means and expenditures?

*I* want a return on *my* investment

[Anonymous Coward]

And I am not a big corporate donor. I am a taxpayer. Depending on the state, I likely paid for that software to be written; I underwrite tuition at the university; the university was founded with a land appropriation, which if left private could have made my grandfather rich; a variety of special provisions by the state legislature give this university a wide class of special exemptions and preferences.

This is not Bell Labs or Xerox Parc, folks. *Those* are places that can whine about a return on investment.

And now my and my ancestor's investments in an educated society full of opportunity are being hijacked by lawyers and weak, cowardly, and greedy administration. The trustees and administrators of most universities in the US these days are a craven mafia eager to claim the public's infrastructure for themselves and set up a toll gate. These are the people who didn't make it on to the board of Enron and WorldCom because they were too untrustworthy.

Quit now. And LIGHT THE PLACE ON FIRE WHEN YOU LEAVE.

Re:*I* want a return on *my* investment

[fliplap]

Um, if you have this idea that most major research universities are raking in the bucks, you're sorely mistaken. The fact is, they do this sort of thing to pay the bills. You're a tax payer, this is something YOU should want, so the universities don't have to rely as much on state/federal funding. Granted we still rely heavily on it.

Or maybe you think we just spend too much? Do students really need access to computers? Do teachers really deserve thier pay? Why don't we cut back on things like new equiptment or educator training. We could just get less qualified teachers and let the ones we have go work for large corperations and keep all thier work to themselves.

Or maybe you think tuition should pay it all? Then your taxes can go towards those government subsidised loans and grants.

Or maybe you think those loans and grants shouldn't be given out. Then you could have a country full of the uneducated, or they'd have to teach even more to kids in highschool...which you pay for.

I'm not sure exactly where you were trying to go with that rant. Do you really know what you want?

Re:Add a few librarys

[spitzak]

You seem to misunderstand the GPL. The likely result if they manage to make it releasable GPL-only is that the IP department will say they can't release it at all, meaning your source code will NEVER be used.

The GPL DOES NOT FORCE YOU TO RELEASE ANYTHING!!!! It forces you to release the source code if you distribute the program. Get that in your head.

Trying to force the code to be GPL is probably worse than anything. It took a long time to locate what libBFD is. It is used to read/write elf and coff formats interchangably. I guess it could be used instead of dlload or if you are writing a compiler or linker. Still there are plenty of LGPL or public domain tools to read/write these formats so if there really is commercial value to the program you will find your clever GPL-force removed rather quickly and may find yourself demoted for trying such obvious sabotage.

The GPL is a GOOD idea for commercial software

[spitzak]

It guarantees nobody else can "extend" it and sell it as their own product.

Nothing prevents you from selling closed-source versions of the same code you release GPL. You can provide official support or installation or manuals (no reason to release the good manuals with the GPL code). Or you can also add a few extensions of your own to the closed-source version so it has more value other than just official support.

The GPL version may be extremely useful for advertising your program. If it does anything useful you will find awareness of your program very high.

You can also copyright the name of the program in such a way that anybody forking a version is forced to change the name significantly so there is no way to confuse the two. If your name is considered "official" then that other version will have a hard time competing.

The problem is your IP department has been brainwashed into believing the GPL is bad for them. In some cases they are so stupid that they think it is worse than releasing the code public-domain. In fact unless you have millions of dollars in marketing budget, the GPL is the only method you have to make your product commercially viable. Microsoft is scared to death of this competition appearing which is why they are fighting it in every way they can, including posting some misleading letters here.

Dual-Licensing Scheme

[dismentor]

As much as I hate providing a compromise in this situation: Do as Trolltech: Release freely under an OpenSource license. Release under a commercial license for a fee. Make contributions back to your code repository can be relicensed. (n) Profit!!!?!?!?!?. ahem...

Re:Just GPL it and release it

[deanj]

Fire you.

Re:Add a few librarys

[brejc8]

Youre getting a bit touchy about this.
The project is a university project and the first principle of such is to educate and explore. It is not there to make money nor to create copyright or patents for the university.
If you are studying or researching you can write any code you like to help with the research but it does belong to the University. The University is not going to say "You are no longer allowed to code" or "never use GPL'd librarys again". Students job isn't to code for the university and researchers can do anything that fits in their research contract.
Any copyrightable or patentable code or work arising from your research can be used by the university but they cant tell you to write, what to write, how to write it or which librarys to link against.
And yes you could remove LibBFD. And no dlload is not a replacement. You can call it sabbotage but I think its using the best tools for the job.