Researchers' Right To Open Source Research

bstadil writes: "There is an interesting debate over at SiliconValley.com about the right of researchers funded by Universities to make their IP Open Source. It's not at all simple. On one side Universities claiming their derive 5% of their Budget from IP licenses and it's vital for continued high level of 'Output,' on the other hand researcher who claim the public is billed twice by licensing the output."

Re:The answer is obvious...

[ab315]

The FSF asks for copyright assignments because of the legal advice that the best chance of the defending the license is if it is held by a single well-funded organization. If you've ever tried to sue someone infringing your copyright then you've got to be aware that you are putting your personal savings, house, etc on the line if the case goes down the pan and you have to pay legal costs, which could be huge. If you assign to the FSF you eliminate your personal liability. The FSF has a legal warchest ready for fighting any infringement of the GPL. Basically if you don't assign to the FSF or someother big organization that you're in a really weak position and could lose a lot if you actually tried to enforce the license.

Re:Computer Science should grow up.

[budGibson]

Computer science is already like this. You are not taken seriously unless you can produce code. For instance, in his autobiography, "Models of My Life", Herb Simon of Carnegie-Mellon recounts the first AI conference. He and Al Newell won the right to edit the proceedings of the conference because they were the only ones with actually working code. Dave Touretzky, also of Carnegie-Mellon, is even more adamant on this point, and his web-site has been cited frequently in this forum as regards the DECSS. Dave is very respected in CS, see his views at:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst [cmu.edu]

Federal research should yield fully open results

[Dr. Zowie]

I receive 100% of my salary via federally funded research grants. I find it hard to believe that this issue is anything but clear-cut. The public are paying researchers such as me to find out about the Universe (in this case, about our star, the Sun); if I withheld research results, data, or tools that came from that research, I would be stealing from... you. If universities withhold software, data, or other knowledge developed using federal research money, they are stealing from... you and me both.

By the way, thanks! Last year, about $0.10 of your tax bill (on average) went to solar physics research.

Comments

[StevenBrenner]

I am the researcher mentioned at the beginning of the article, and I hope to address some of the questions that have arisen here. Please note that while the quotes in the article are accurate, the views ascribed to me are sometimes misleading

What exactly is the agreement I have with the University?
Briefly, my agreement with the University allows me, as well as members of my group, to produce open source software so long as:
(1) all authors agree for the software to be open source,
(2) the funding source agrees with the code being open source, and
(3) no laws are broken (including aspects of patent law embodied in the Bayh-Dole act).

Note that while this agreement permits my group to produce open source software, it does not require that we produce open source software. This is a blanket agreement covering all of my software written at the University.

Who funded this research?
The agreement covers all of my software development, regardless of source (though, as noted above, each source must be consulted). It was drawn up before I had any funding, as part of my employment agreement. Since then, my research has been funded from public sources (NIH, NSF, DOE, LBNL, and the University of California), and from a private charity (a Searle Scholarship).

Some clarifications of my views, where the article was imprecise

1. I believe it is desirable for authors to be allowed to produce open source software. At this point, I think it would be inappropriate for it to be required, as others have proposed. I currently have no problem with other scientists who readily distribute their software but not use open source licenses.
   
2. I believe that prospective authors of open source should approach their Universities with a standard contract similar to mine. I do not presently support a movement to "force universities to allow 'open source' publishing," as the article states.
   
3. I am not opposed to the Novartis/Syngenta agreement at Berkeley, as the article suggests. In fact, I have not studied that agreement carefully, and so I have no considered view of it. My impression is that much being said here about the agreement is incorrect.
   
4. I feel that fixing bugs is only one of many benefits of open source, and probably not the primary benefit (as the article suggests)
   
5. My agreement does not run counter to laws that allow the University to enter exclusive licensing agreements. The primary law governing such agreements is Bayh-Dole, which covers patents. My agreement only covers copyright. Moreover, my agreement has as a prerequisite permission from the funding source.
   
6. I agree with Phil Green that many individuals have greater respect for software that they've paid for. No problem: have both an Open Source and a commercial license for the code (as is the case for important programs like HMMER [wustl.edu]).

Some closing notes...

1. The University's default licensing agreement allows anyone to use the source code for non-commercial, research purposes. It's not nearly as bad as most posters here suggest. See it here [google.com] (note: the original site is down; this is the google cache).
   
2. It is instructive to actually read the U.S. patent code as modified by the Bayh-Dole act. As I understand it, the main point of this act is encourage intellectual property from federal funding to be developed, rather than left to sit on in the dust on a shelf.
   
3. The University of California, Berkeley was quite helpful in arranging my open source agreement. I understand why their default license is different, and I appreciate their assistance in modifying their standard terms to accommodate my scientific goals. I was very happy with the University's response, and I think the agreement is eminently reasonable.

I welcome follow-up postings here and will try to answer further questions that arise.

Steven E. Brenner
http://compbio.berkeley.edu [berkeley.edu]

Not so clear

[epepke]

1. I used to work for the Computing Center at Florida State University. The budget that the University gave us was $1 million per year, far less than the cost of providing computing services to the University. We were specifically expected to make up the remaining $6 or $7 million by providing services to people outside the University for money.
2. After that, I spent 13 years as a research scientist with the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute at FSU. At the end, as s senior scientist, I made 2/5 the money I am making now in industry. Academia is a life of genteel poverty. We were constantly scrambling for grants. We paid for our floor of the building, and for the first few years all the "public" University gave us was power and air-conditioning. Several years in, one University president decided to pay for 14 faculty positions (including mine) out of about 100. The next president wanted those positions back. The Institite eventually self-destructed for this reason (which is why I'm now in industry and glad of the change). Nevertheless, I released SciAn, a visualization package, as open source.
3. There are two periods in University history: Before Gatorade and After Gatorade. Gatorade, of course, was developed at the University of Florida. The University got not a dime from it. A lot of people decided that this shouldn't happen in the future.

In principle, I would agree with the idea that public institutions should release everything free, but the same people who want free goodies also piss and moan every time April 15 comes around and whenever there's a tuition increase. Until this changes, so-called "public" institutions are not going to be primarily publically funded.

If you want truly public institutions, then, people, you have to pay for them. There's no infinite teat o' money.