Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Licensing of the unrevii email archives (wasre: Progress on...)
Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com> writes: (01)
% Yeah, this is a terribly sad state of affairs in academia today. I know
% one college student whose university made him and classmates assign a
% successful classroom project to the professor (implication being they
% would otherwise fail) who then went on to sell it and split the money
% with the university. I was around a university over a decade ago just
% after a person left with some software they had written that they
% created a successful company with, and the university essentially
% decided that would never happen again (meaning not getting a cut) and to
% an extent it never has (meaning innovation has become much more
% difficult there -- increasing difficulty sharing code across projects,
% faculty not publicly presenting work, students hiding ideas until they
% leave, etc.). It's unfortunate that universities (even public ones) have
% chosen to go down this path. I'd rather they chose as a resolution
% saying the work was free for everyone. It lessens my support for them as
% I see universities using public funds for their own private benefit (and
% strangely enough they are supposedly doing this to increase support...)
% I'd rather then just pay less taxes so I could develop more free stuff
% on my own... (02)
At least from the public university point of view (where I teach),
the finances are so problematic, that they are having to
grub for as much non-state funding as they can get. They look
around for all means of making something financially viable.
Even to the point of diminishing longer term gains in terms of
dreams of big funding, or short term financial gains. (03)
It is very clear that when people are hungry, they don't look
for what is right, but what is most likely to feed them now. (04)
So what you indicate above is the universities getting hungry
enough to eat thier own seed corn.... (05)
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