I just graduated from the University of Waterloo. They have an extremely liberal policy on intellectual property. Anything you develop on their systems, aside from stuff written specifically for the university (administrative, etc.), you basically own. This includes all research, student work, etc. The only limitation is that the university retains the right to use anything you write for future research, teaching, etc. within the university.
Many companies surround the university which were spawned by research done there. They are often owned in large part by the professors themselves. They continue doing their research at the university, except they are (a) a lot richer, (b) supported by their own companies to do more research, and (c) more interesting (usually!) as lecturers.
See http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/73a.h tml
The relevant section of the policy:
Owners of IP rights in scholarly works created in the course of teaching and research activities grant the University a non-exclusive, free, irrevocable license to copy and/or use such works in other teaching and research activities, but excluding licensing and distribution to persons or organizations outside the University community. Any such licensing and/or distribution activity would be authorized only by an additional license from the owner(s).
Universities teaching useless stuff, rather than practical skills?
Maybe the problem isn't colleges teaching useless theoretical stuff, but that community colleges aren't pulling their weight. THAT is the place for practical skills.
I've finally reached my fourth year of a CS programme at a university. Do you know what? I took a distributed systems course. Boring as all hell. I learned about TCP/IP, ethernet, ATM, rpc, and, finally, all sorts of mostly internet protocols. (and some time sync algorithms, blah, blah, blah) While I already knew more than half the course, the other half I could have read in a couple of days in a book. That sort of stuff is for community college. It's for people who somehow have difficulty learning it on their own. (I was disappointed they didn't get into CORBA or even DCOM indepth -- it's a book I haven't gotten around to reading yet.)
The other two courses I've been taking consist of formal languages (from finite automata to turing machines), and now principles of programming languages (so far lambda calculus and now type systems and ML). THIS is the stuff for university. This is stuff I'll never learn in the real "practical" world. University is here to teach me a broader perspective on technology and computing. It's here to open my mind to radically alternative ways of looking at the same thing -- even if it doesn't turn out to be the latest fad in computing.
My conclusion? I think that, perhaps, those who go to university expecting to learn practical real skills belong in a community college. (mind you, many of those in my area could be a much more higher quality than they are) I think MIT has the right idea teaching Scheme in first year. It shocks people into realizing that there's a lot more to computing than they thought.
Jon Katz's articles all seem to refer to the evils of corporatism and greed. I am baffled by this. Profit is the fundamental motive behind businesses in this economy. It can also be a significant motive for many individuals. According to my understanding of the world, the internet would not be where it is today if it weren't for this motive. Would it be so readily available, if it weren't for the profit motive of ISPs? Or telcoms providing the cables and networks, or Nortel/Cisco/whatever providing the equipment? Or the distributors distributing the goods? What about all of the hardware manufacturers, who, due to intense competition, are constantly striving to produce better goods at cheaper prices? (And succeeding.) Would technology be evolving as fast as it would, if it weren't for the currently massive incentives to improve the productivity of countless businesses? Everyone in the field is making a fortune because businesses can save so much money. (setting aside the stock market, there are still huge profits being made) It is also providing services to individuals where none existed before. Technology, without that profit motive, would largely remain some theoretical construct. It would have remained where the internet was when it was first founded -- as an academic & scientific interest. (Not that being that is bad -- just that it wouldn't be *nearly* as useful today as it is if it never changed from that.) From a pure technological point of view, there are many not-so-nice things out there. Microsoft, for instance. But Microsoft doesn't care about technology in and of itself, just as Amazon doesn't care about innovation or free speech by itself; Microsoft wants to sell and market the products people will most readily buy, which are not the most reliable, and Amazon will, to the limits of the law, make the most money possible (read: convince enough customers to buy from it), regardless of the consequences. Thankfully, in both cases it *does* involve some innovation and advances. Sometimes more, sometimes less. If it weren't for Microsoft's ease of use, would the internet be where it is today? (Seriously. It might be, but I'd argue that it played a strong role nevertheless.) As for Amazon and its patent lawsuits -- if I were an investor, I'd be disappointed if it did anything less. The problem isn't with Amazon -- it's his responsibility to go to the limits of the law to further his business -- but with the law itself. As an citizen, I'd object to the specific legalities. Personally, I wouldn't have him or Microsoft act in any other way.
Slashdot Mirror
I just graduated from the University of Waterloo. They have an extremely liberal policy on intellectual property. Anything you develop on their systems, aside from stuff written specifically for the university (administrative, etc.), you basically own. This includes all research, student work, etc. The only limitation is that the university retains the right to use anything you write for future research, teaching, etc. within the university. Many companies surround the university which were spawned by research done there. They are often owned in large part by the professors themselves. They continue doing their research at the university, except they are (a) a lot richer, (b) supported by their own companies to do more research, and (c) more interesting (usually!) as lecturers. See http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/73a.h tml
The relevant section of the policy:
Owners of IP rights in scholarly works created in the course of teaching and research activities grant the University a non-exclusive, free, irrevocable license to copy and/or use such works in other teaching and research activities, but excluding licensing and distribution to persons or organizations outside the University community. Any such licensing and/or distribution activity would be authorized only by an additional license from the owner(s).
Universities teaching useless stuff, rather than practical skills?
Maybe the problem isn't colleges teaching useless theoretical stuff, but that community colleges aren't pulling their weight. THAT is the place for practical skills.
I've finally reached my fourth year of a CS programme at a university. Do you know what? I took a distributed systems course. Boring as all hell. I learned about TCP/IP, ethernet, ATM, rpc, and, finally, all sorts of mostly internet protocols. (and some time sync algorithms, blah, blah, blah) While I already knew more than half the course, the other half I could have read in a couple of days in a book. That sort of stuff is for community college. It's for people who somehow have difficulty learning it on their own. (I was disappointed they didn't get into CORBA or even DCOM indepth -- it's a book I haven't gotten around to reading yet.)
The other two courses I've been taking consist of formal languages (from finite automata to turing machines), and now principles of programming languages (so far lambda calculus and now type systems and ML). THIS is the stuff for university. This is stuff I'll never learn in the real "practical" world. University is here to teach me a broader perspective on technology and computing. It's here to open my mind to radically alternative ways of looking at the same thing -- even if it doesn't turn out to be the latest fad in computing.
My conclusion? I think that, perhaps, those who go to university expecting to learn practical real skills belong in a community college. (mind you, many of those in my area could be a much more higher quality than they are) I think MIT has the right idea teaching Scheme in first year. It shocks people into realizing that there's a lot more to computing than they thought.
Mark
Jon Katz's articles all seem to refer to the evils of corporatism and greed. I am baffled by this. Profit is the fundamental motive behind businesses in this economy. It can also be a significant motive for many individuals. According to my understanding of the world, the internet would not be where it is today if it weren't for this motive. Would it be so readily available, if it weren't for the profit motive of ISPs? Or telcoms providing the cables and networks, or Nortel/Cisco/whatever providing the equipment? Or the distributors distributing the goods? What about all of the hardware manufacturers, who, due to intense competition, are constantly striving to produce better goods at cheaper prices? (And succeeding.) Would technology be evolving as fast as it would, if it weren't for the currently massive incentives to improve the productivity of countless businesses? Everyone in the field is making a fortune because businesses can save so much money. (setting aside the stock market, there are still huge profits being made) It is also providing services to individuals where none existed before. Technology, without that profit motive, would largely remain some theoretical construct. It would have remained where the internet was when it was first founded -- as an academic & scientific interest. (Not that being that is bad -- just that it wouldn't be *nearly* as useful today as it is if it never changed from that.) From a pure technological point of view, there are many not-so-nice things out there. Microsoft, for instance. But Microsoft doesn't care about technology in and of itself, just as Amazon doesn't care about innovation or free speech by itself; Microsoft wants to sell and market the products people will most readily buy, which are not the most reliable, and Amazon will, to the limits of the law, make the most money possible (read: convince enough customers to buy from it), regardless of the consequences. Thankfully, in both cases it *does* involve some innovation and advances. Sometimes more, sometimes less. If it weren't for Microsoft's ease of use, would the internet be where it is today? (Seriously. It might be, but I'd argue that it played a strong role nevertheless.) As for Amazon and its patent lawsuits -- if I were an investor, I'd be disappointed if it did anything less. The problem isn't with Amazon -- it's his responsibility to go to the limits of the law to further his business -- but with the law itself. As an citizen, I'd object to the specific legalities. Personally, I wouldn't have him or Microsoft act in any other way.