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?

Make money?!

[slevin]

Does anyone besides Microsoft actually make money strictly selling software? The way I see it, there are only a few ways to make money in the biz:

• Be a large company that can affort to market the heck out of your products. (ie the current capitalist method).
• Be a niche developer selling a useful product to a small market. This usually works for a solitary developer. The market won't be big enough to support much more than that.
• Really target a niche market hard - Mathematica, Matlab. This is almost an extension of the first category, cause its still all about marketing.
• Be a small group of friendly talented developers who labor for love. (I'm thinking OmniGroup here)
• Do some sort of value added open source thing. The profits are probably directly proportional to the marketing muscle.

No software will be perfect, therefore, no software will sell itself. Unless your university plans on making the financial risk of targeted advertising, the money just won't come. Ask them to generate a plan on how they intend to sell your software. If they won't commit, then give them some examples of the last category (sleepycat, apache, mysql, zope, etc.)

sean

Re:Make money?!

[tha_mink]

Does anyone besides Microsoft actually make money strictly selling software? The way I see it, there are only a few ways to make money in the biz:

That's pretty ignorant so I assume you've got to be kidding. This is so much more software getting sold "out there" than you know about. Just becasue it doesn't come in a box at "best buy" doesn't mean that there isn't someone making copious amounts of money off of it. Plus a "potentially marketable" product could be anything. Maybe this dude wrote some software for a miniture assembly line and it could be sold to assembly line vendors, you have no idea.

No software will be perfect, therefore, no software will sell itself. Unless your university plans on making the financial risk of targeted advertising, the money just won't come.
WTF? Lots of software sells itself simply by filling a void.

Add a few librarys

[brejc8]

Its easy to force or make it very difficult not to release the source of a project once you are the coder. The easyest way is to link in a few GPL librarys (LibBFD is my favorite in this area) and make their use so essential that the software cannot be unbundled from them. Then state that if the product is to be released to the public it has to be open sourced due to its use of GPL'd librarys. Doesn't stop you writing it but if the university wants to distribute it then it needs to open it.

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.

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.

Re:Add a few librarys

[spitzak]

Sorry. I just meant to counteract the common fud that adding GPL code is going to destroy any commercial value for the code. If in fact it has commercial value as closed-source to the evil university they will have little to no difficulty removing the GPL library. They will also likely blame the writer for putting it in there, rather than admit that the use of the GPL library probably got the thing tested and implemented sooner.

Using the GPL library to make your job easier is perfectly fine. But trying to say this will stop commercial exploitation overstates the power of the GPL.

Getting your project out into the world....

[deanj]

I've been in this situation before, on several different projects. Getting something through the intellectual property office, or whatever your version of it is called, is a complete nightmare.
Since the internet boom, universities have been looking at software with an eye towards making money from about anything they could. I avoid that office until I absolutely can't.

Anyway....

First, is this something related to what you're doing at work? Did you come up with it, and work on it at work? If you didn't, they shouldn't be able to touch it. (insert standard "I'm not a lawyer, check with one of you're worried" disclaimer here).

If you did work on it at work, I seriously doubt this is something you can win, since you did use their resources to create it. I was never able to. The best I came up with was copyright by the university, free for non-commercial use. If someone uses it commercially, they have to obtain a license from the university.

A couple of tips:

1) First, hound the lawyers. I don't mean daily, but I do mean at least once every couple of weeks. If you don't, your release form will go to the bottom of the pile and you'll wait months and months. That's because there are many other people trying to get their patents, licenses, etc. approved. Be nice, friendly, but persistent. You'll need a good contact there in case someone actually does ask for the commerical license.

2) Don't expect to actually sell a commerical license. I've had many requests for commercial licenses, and none of them panned out. We charge about $3000 for the code (which is very cheap, if you compare it to the commerical world), and no further fees, but no one touched it.

3) If you accept changes from the outside to the code base you're maintaining, make it clear that it's under this license. The license should probably state something like that. This will make the lawyers feel better.

4) If at ALL possible, see if you can get a general license approved, that you can use to send out stuff that you'll come up with later. You'll still have to run it by the lawyers, but it'll take much less time.

5) If you're aware of any other software project that's gone through this before, find those folks, and ask them about all this. They might have something you can use to make the lawyers feel better. You might end up being this person if you're the one blazing the trail at your University. I know our license ended up being used by other projects after people consulted with me.

6) If you have no idea what to put in a license like this, look around at other universities that have released code like this, run it by the lawyers and see what they say.

7) This isn't really related to the license, but worth doing. Set up something to count the number of downloads you get on your software. Set up a mailing list too. If someone tries to axe the project because "no one uses it", you'll have ammo for that argument.

Good luck with all this. It's a real pain, but if you get a community behind your project to support you, it's worth it.

*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?

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.

Re:The GPL is a GOOD idea for commercial software

[captaineo]

The only problem with this, which may or may not be serious, is the possibility of competitors stealing code from your GPL project.

Of course outright copying would be illegal, but how are you going to prove it? Are you going to have to constantly throw money at lawyers to get subpoenas to look at your (closed-source) competitors' code? Will the legal system even allow you to do that?

Plus a competitor could "contaminate" their code with yours without really taking it line-by-line; a patent may be helpful against this but you can't stop it completely.

Whether or not these threats are significant depends on what kind of software you are writing. It think there is a case for making "ancillary" code (GUI/command-line interfaces, cross-platform libraries, etc) GPL, while keeping "core algorithms" secret.

(most of the bugs and flaws I find in commercial software are in the "ancillary" stuff like I/O code anyway; I'd love to have access to the source for those things, even if I didn't have access to the "core")

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...

Sean is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Most software written is not written for distribution and sale. It is written in house, or by contractors, for the business's direct use, and any sort of copyright system whatsoever will never effect it because it will never be copied. You know, kind of like how this project in question probably started.

The large company method (Oracle, Borland, of course MS, etc) is probably out. These people will not buy that software from you. From the point of view of the MBA's who make the decision, anything written in a couple of years by a couple of guy's can be replicated (ok, half as good) by 50 Hindi's working for 1% the price each over 4 years, and given that actual software development is like 2% of the company's cost, the uncertainties of buying someone else's software (look at all the time MS has bought software that turned out to be pirated or under the BSD license), they just won't do it. These MBAs veiw you and and anything associated with you as shit and won't give you the time of day.

Now look at the niche market guy, particularly the one to five person shop. In this catagory you have 4 Developers (discriptive name), ACDsee (probably as big as these class ever gets, a 40 person company), Mondo rescue (hey, it's even open source!), Device Logics (milking the last bit of money out of DRDOS with a 3 person company). Folks, as programmers, that catagory is where the money is. Those programmers keep more of what they produce than anyone else in the industry. Their products are cheap, but ultimately the future is a few biggies like Oracle and Microsoft still conning the pointy-haireds who won't buy from anyone else, and a vast class of independent shops. Society will spend less on software, but paradoxically software programmers will get more money, because the vast and oppressive corporate bureaucracies will be starved out.

Those guys will never buy our man's University written software because they can't afford enough to pay the university lawyer's hourly rate while they look over the docs and sign them.

In short, Sean is right and this software will never make money.

UNLESS . . . our man quits his academic job and re-writes this and starts selling it himself. Which is of course exactly what he should do.

Re:Just GPL it and release it

[deanj]

Fire you.

have you read the FSF doc about this?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I should assume you have read this document but
I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere:
(Releasing Free Software if you work at a University)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/univers ity.html

Hope this helps.
Ciaran O'Riordan

Oxford University

[cperciva]

I ran into this issue at Oxford University, which lays claim to potentially marketable IP produced by its students (which includes myself). Talking to the Research Services Office, however, I explained that being able to distribute my work was critical for the success of my research, and they agreed that "a university member's research must take priority over any commercial benefit"; once I put together a copyright statement which disclaimed all liability -- several times -- they were quite happy to let me distribute my work.

In short, if this is research, it's quite likely that the university will allow you to distribute it regardless of the official policies; but if you were hired for the purpose of writing a piece of software... well, it belongs to the university and they can do whatever they like with it.