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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?"
The easiest way to force something under the GPL or other copyleft licenses is to make a derivative work from GPLed code. So consider using the GNU Scientific Library or something similar as your base. Your University will most likely not make you rewrite it and, if they have a legal department, will most likely not ask you to violate the GPL.
For a good piece on GPL in academia, see Releasing Free Software if you work at a University by Richard Stallman.
In particular, the GPL ... only allows non-commercial software to use your copyrighted/patented work,
Please stop spreading this lie. "Commercial", "proprietary", and "closed source" all have seperate, and distinct, meanings, and the GPL only prohibits the last two.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
On further research, it looks like I was wrong. According to U of T's Copyright policy the university holds the copyright to anything "created by an Author in the course of the Author's employment by the University." On the other hand, "For the purposes of this Policy, research and instruction, or the creation of instructional Works, including Instructional Software, undertaken by members of the University's Teaching Staff or librarians shall not be deemed to be made or undertaken in the course of their employment by the University." This leaves me thoroughly confused, which is about par for the course.
However, in another twist in this dramatic story " Computer Software that is not Instructional Software will be deemed to be an "Invention" under the Inventions Policy, and the rights and obligations with respect to such Computer Software and the disposition of revenues therefrom shall be in accordance with the Inventions Policy." This Invention Policy says that the university essentially everything you make in your office.
So, we're no different than anyone else, but damn if we don't have the best student union in the greater Canadas.
Sleep is for the weak!