Is there a bright future for open software projects?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <pp4qb-ju.ln1 at news.lairds.org>,
Kyler Laird  <Kyler at news.Lairds.org> wrote:
>donnal at donnal.net (Donnal Walter) writes:
>
>>I have wondered why open-source software is not more common in
>>academia. The BSD and MIT licenses (just to name two) demonstrate that
>>universities are indeed common producers of open-source software, but
>>I am surprised that the academic world does not insist on
>>open-sourcing all software produced therein.
>
>It would be nice to think that universities are just interested
>in serving the public good, but these days they are "industry
>partners."  Just as education has given way to students being
>trained to operate software that industry "demands" (and is
>typically proprietary), any software ("intellectual property")
>produced by a university that has value must be handed off to a
>department that will evaluate how it can squeeze some money
>from it through licensing.
>
>There's a great quote that I wish I could find right now.  It's
>from a University of California spokesperson and essentially
>says "If we'd known this Internet thing was going to be such a
>hit, we wouldn't have released it to the public."
>
>--kyler

Everyone understand that "squeeze some money" clause?
Most often universities are not set up to maximize
their return, or release as much as possible while 
covering costs, or any other straightforward and at
least comprehensible heuristic; instead, they insti-
tutionalize policies that impose terrible costs *on
themselves*, in order to avoid the appearance they
might be missing out on a licensing opportunity.

It's a real swamp.
-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html