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Universities, the GPL and Patents?

Posted by Cliff on from the research-for-everyone dept.

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?"

6 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. University of Toronto by baronben · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm in the process of writing a report for the University of Toronto and recommendations for releasing research as open source. I was told not to even concentrate on convincing them to do it, they're already leaning towards that, but rather to make recommendations on licences. As far as I can tell, no department at U of T says that they own research, and profs and grad students generally have a free hand to release their research as they want.

    U of T is also home to the Knowledge Media Design Institute, which is a huge proponent of Open Source. This year they ran a lecture series called Open Source | Open Access which was entirely on the place of open source within the academic community. They're also offering grants to students to work on open source software!

    I'm not sure how good the math program is here, as the maths frighten me. From walking around campus, I do know that we have something called the "Fields Institute for Mathematics", which seems very official and such not. Give it a look, there are worse places to be than downtown Toronto.

    Give me an e-mail if you want some more info on U of T

    --
    Sleep is for the weak!
  2. Lame by Silkejr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That's ridiculous and really messed up that a university would have a policy like that. The whole idea of a university is the dissemination of knowledge, not locking it up in legalities.

  3. Re:Most Will...You Just Need To Know How To Start by Noksagt · · Score: 4, Interesting
    You, ah, DO realize that using GPL'd code without legal authority to release it is copyright infrigement
    It appears to me that the OP wants to be a post doc or a professor at a University. Typically these people don't have the University administration telling them what to work on. Yes, there are agreements with the administration & with the funding agencies. But there is still a lot of latitude in what they work on. How many academic contracts can you show me which prevent you from starting with copyleft code?

    The GPL itself allows you to make derivative works. It just dictates how you distribute those works.
    otherwise known in the academic field as plagarism--correct?
    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.
    Your university or employer can and should expel/fire you if you try and force them to use a copyleft license they have no intention of using.
    It is pragmatically different in the corporate world in that they DO force both a license and what you work on down your throat.
    Just as they can and should expel/fire you if you try and submit "Noksagt Windows XP" as your final project.
    That would be violating a trademark. Your working on GPL software is not breaking copyrights.

    Still, asking both your University and funding agency for permission to start with GPLed code to accelerate production (and therefore getting more papers out sooner & research done sooner) is a good idea. Most Universities and funding agencies don't view every software project as something which will be sold & see papers & academic discoveries as the real ends. They will therefore be likely to give you permission so you can do your job.
  4. Re:Most Will...You Just Need To Know How To Start by Urgoll · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I do work in academia, and one thing I've noticed is that more and more funding agencies (NSF among others) is that they are more likely to fund your proposal if the proposal states that the software created by the project will be released under an open source license. Open Source is good for the funding agency, as it means that the research will be more widely disseminated, and so will have a bigger bang for the buck. It can also be folded into the 'educational outreach' part of the proposal.

    Once the funding agency has agreed to fund a proposal which stated that the software would be released under an open source license, this thing goes into the contract between the agency and the university, and you're in the clear.

    The university would be really stupid to refuse such a contract - in fact, I've never heard of a university refusing money. :-)

  5. Re:Most Will...You Just Need To Know How To Start by Sancho · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And that is why I (and Stallman before me) said it is a good way to release software under the GPL. If you start with GPLed software, you have two choices: keep it in house & don't release it (which many Universities and funding agencies are O.K. with) or release it under the GPL.

    Precisely. A professor making a derivative work under the terms of the submitter's contract would effectively mean that the University owns the derivative work. As it is derivative of a GPL'd program, the University may choose what to do with it, however if they distribute it, it MUST be distributed under the GPL.

    The professor writing the code won't be distributing it to the University--he is effectively a representative of the University while he is doing it, and thus should have no legal problems unless he himself tries to distribute the code [under the GPL]. Doing so would seemingly violate his contract, but just making a derivative work should be fine until/unless they tell him not to.

  6. Re:Most Will...You Just Need To Know How To Start by croddy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The idea that software code produced as part of academic research could be anything but open-source is appalling. How can the software possibly be peer-reviewed for its merits if its source code is kept secret?

    Personally, I don't trust the results of any research that is based on proprietary, black-box software. Keeping the source code hidden may work in the retail software business, but it simply doesn't cut it in research.

    Show us the source code, or your research is freaking useless.