🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <49823@bbn.COM> cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes:
   > Someone convinced Brian of the commercial potential of the program,
   >and he sold all commercial rights to a company which I think was formed for
   >the purpose of selling Scribe and related software.  There was a big hassle
   >for awhile with C-MU trying to claim ownership and therefore collect all the
   >profits, but as i recall, the final decision was that, as a grad student,
   >Brian indeed had the rights to Scribe and could sell the program and collect
   >the profits if he wished.

   We can just ASK Brian, of course [reid@decwrl.dec.com ought to do, I'd
   guess], but the twist on this was that Brian did scribe *as* his
   doctoral dissertation project [speaking of self-referential efforts].
   It is often the case that schools retain interests in stuff developed
   "on their behalf" in exchange for a degree [isn't that the old story
   about Land --- he had to *refuse* his degree at Harvard or else _they_
   would have claimed ownership or license or some such in his work [I
   think that round was his polarizing material]], so things are not
   always as clear cut as they seem... in fact, in some ways I'm surprised
   that he *did* get CMU to let him retain the rights....

I am exactly in the same position; I am doing a lot of work that
I will eventually turn over to the FSF, but I cannot do it on my
University's machines because they reserve the right to sell it,
and to forbid its publication in any form if it has any
commercial value. I have had also to engineed things so that my
dissertation is not the program, but *its analysis*, so in the
worst case they can hoard the thesis describing the program but
not the program itself. I have had to spend a lot of money to buy
myself hardware and software for my project, because I cannot
touch any University computer for my research.

There are a few interesting aspects:

@ the clauses that make all the work of students the exclusive
property of the University are usually buried in some regulations
that you must look up yourself (or in some intimidating paper
that grants you access to University laboratories only if you
renounce rights in the work you do therein),

@ there are reliable rumours that the work of students is often
sold without them being told (after all, it is said, it's the
exclusive property of the University, not the student's),

@ thesis supervisors apparently get a share of the royalties (I
have been told that many would not be available to supervise
theses if they were not guaranteed a share of the potential
proceeds),

@ research done by members of staff (academics) is usually
instead their own property, even if developed with University
resources (e.g. secretaries, computers, etc...),

@ if a student is supported by a grant, usually rights are vested
in the funding agency (unless it is from another country --
usually the works of non EEC students in the UK belong to the
University, not to their country's government, even if supposedly
their government paid for the full cost of their education) that
often shares them with the student, but if the student is self
financing, the University gets full control of the work.

Some Universities, especially in the USA, are staunch (and wise,
self interested) supporters of the idea of freely sharing
research, some others are more short sighted. As to these, I
resent their soliciting donations, discounts, and other
gratuities from the public, and then profiting from the work of
their *customers*.  I think that this is one more case where
the GNU GPL discourages free riders.

In this respect some Universities are among the worst, and IMNHO,
stupid, hoarders.  UK Universities, that are especially keen on
this, have squeezed a few thousand pounds selling their students'
research, and lost the millions that come if you give it away for
fame's sake, and to enhance their reputation (if any...).
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi           | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk