Ok, just so I can waste a little more time on this... I have been making an assumption that many people would not like to contribute to a project where a government entity (albeit mostly a system of universities in NYS) would take a 60% cut of any revenue we might make. Maybe I'm wrong in that assumption.
So, here are what I see as our options: 1. Pure copyleft. The problem is that nobody will be able to put this into an SoC with proprietary components, cutting off any revenue potential entirely. I don't like that. 2. More permissive license (MIT or BSD). The problem is that ANYONE can put it into their SoC and make money, and we'd never see a penny. I don't like that either. 3. I (or someone we trust) can hold the copyright and manage the (potential for) money. The problem is that this cuts me off from university resources. 4. I could pay $200/month to create a startup at the university, which eliminates any conflict of interest and allows me access to most BU resources. The problems are that I cannot justify this expense for such a long shot, and it cuts me off from leveraging my own advisees, which would be among the most qualified people to participate. 5. I could let NYS own it. This takes care of ALL of the licensing issues, so I don't have to think about it. This gives me access to all BU resources, including my own advisees. I can use federal money to pay students to work on it. This would be the best option academically, and it would also allow us to have something working sooner than any of the other options. The catch is that NYS owns it, and I'm given only 40% of the royalties. The more I think about it, option 5 is what I prefer. Conflict of interest is gone. Academic participation is up. I can focus on science and not law. The entire SUNY system is at my disposal. All around, it's just easier and more productive. And if an outside contributor doesn't like it, they can go somewhere else. Opinions? Note that only the synthesizable GPU is being discussed here. NYS won't own any older OGP stuff, and the simulator has no revenue potential, so it's out of scope. -- Timothy Normand Miller, PhD Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti> Open Graphics Project
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