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Universities, the GPL and Patents?
nonlnear asks: "I'm about to finish a PhD in Mathematics and am starting to realize that I am not a big fan of my university's policy about inventions, patents, software, and the like. The gist of it is: you invent while working here => we own everything => we will patent everything. I am planning on a career in academia, but am very conflicted about this way of doing things. What Universities out there will allow me to publish (otherwise patentable) software under the GPL?"
Absolutely not. Plagiarism would be violating the GPL. Making a derivative work is not a violation. The ony thing you should have to worry about is the contracts with your University and funding agencies.
Wrong. Dead wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.
Anyone can have just about anything on their local system, that they never show anyone. A researcher can steal quite liberally from someone else in a paper they are writing for practice, or becuase they wanted to just write the paper. None of that's plagarism.
Plagarism is when you publish or submit something and call it your own. Plagarism is, by a coincidence that probably has something to do with Stallman's experience in academia, triggered by the same act that triggers the requirements of the GPL.
Making a derivitive work, giving it someone else, and not using the GPL *IS* a violation of the GPL. And if you have an agreement that keeps you from doing that, you can and should be left holding the bag for your idiotic approach to a legal issue you should have brought up months ago.
How many academic contracts can you show me which prevent you from starting with copyleft code?
How many academic contracts can you show me that prohibit the teacher from shitting on thier desk? Or stealing money from the administrator's pocket?