Hi Tim,
I think that it is not a good idea to try to solve ALL problems too
much in advance. This is an example case of such attempt.
Personally I think it is not possible to have both the open-ness and
commercial benefit from a newly created project. The usuall business is
based on the opposite - not letting the valuable know-how to fly away.
You have to make a decision, either you go the OPEN way, and give out
what you have, hoping that the core developers will get a job in an
entity which in future builds on the results of this project, or you go
a commercional way, forming a startup or one-man-show and keeping your
knowhow secret, charging for the access or use of it.
Personally I won't think of that as a problem, from my open view if
you succeed and you wont be greedy, you can release the stuff to public
in later phase. But doing the opposite is not possible, which seems the
biggest problem which bothers you.
So.. one has to focus on things which can be real, instead of putting
an infinite effort into something what in the current situation just
does not work out.
Daniel
On 01/06/2013 03:43 PM, Timothy Normand Miller wrote:
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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