Interactions Between FLOSS NGOs, the Software Industry and Academia

Bradley M. Kuhn

Monday 11 February 2013

My History

• In a CS PhD program at University of Cincinnati (1997–2000).

• Dropped out with a Master’s to do policy work for Free Software Foundation.

• Worked at various non-profits.

• Now I run a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor non-profit, called Software Freedom Conservancy.

• I’m not a researcher; I’m a policy wonk & advocate for software freedom.

In The Beginning …

• There was a computer.

• There were terminals.

• There were users.

• … and the users had freedom.

Ye Ol’ Four Freedoms

• to use.

• to learn and modify for yourself.

• to copy and share.

• to modify and share modified versions.

The Golden Age of Computing

• academic computing.
• software sharing.
• no licenses!

BSD Project

• 1974: AT&T gives University of California Berkeley full Unix source.

• BSD releases its own distribution.

• No one worries about the licensing, until …

… Then Freedom Eluded Us

• They built licensing walls.

• By separating the software from the computer.

• Who Invented Licensing?

Who Invented Licensing?

As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. … [If] software is something to share … You prevent good software from being written.

• Gates convinces IBM to license rather than acquire DOS.

BSD Lawsuit

• AT&T monopoly gone: 1987 break-up.

• Unix copyrights end up with USL.

• They sue UC-Berkeley in 1992.

• Unresolved until mid 1990s
  • Legal BSD release left incomplete system.
  • Took years for BSD to work again.

• BSD, as a project, only barely recovered.

The Rise of Copyleft

GNU Project

• RMS founds GNU project around copyleft licensing.
  • use copyright law against itself to uphold freedom.

• Founded on idealism.

• Recruited volunteers.

• Paid non-profit staff.

• Centered around MIT.

MIT AI Lab

But MIT was changing.

MIT AI Lab

patents == $$$

MIT AI Lab

spin-offs == $$$

Academic Patent Licensing

• MIT gets USA Patent 4,405,829 on RSA.

• USA is first to invent (until 2011).

• MIT launches spin-off: RSA Data Security.

• Sets back adoption of public key cryptography by a decade (IMO).

The Cycle

• Government funds research.

• Universities gain patents & copyrights.

• Universities launch spin-offs.

• Universities get money.

Unintended consequences?

• Ever wonder why he’s so wealthy?

Selling Patented Tech From Outside USA

• RSA was published in 1977; patented years later.

• Few places are “first to invent”.
  • Patent applies only in a few countries.
• Shuttleworth sells RSA certificates back to USA cheaply.
  • Undercuts Network Solutions.

• Why’d we let that wealth leave USA for South Africa?

My Own Master’s Thesis

• University of Cincinnati Copyright Policy says:
  • Graduate students hold copyright on their thesis document.
  • But not on their software!
  • Don’t even hold copyright on your own homework.

• Hired a lawyer, but couldn’t get University lawyers to budge.

• So, I put my source code as an appendix to my thesis document …
  • … and released it as Free Software.

How Collaboration Should Work

• Academic software systems should be released in software freedom.

• The four freedoms are designed for academic exploration.

• Yet, universities function like businesses.

• We should be agents of change on this issue.

The Irony of Business Research

• FLOSS community has become a favorite research target.
  • Business schools
  • Anthropologists
  • Sociologists

• I’ve been a lab rat in four different studies.

• No real objection, but I’d rather researchers would “go native”.

Research from the CS-side

• So many research systems are released as proprietary software.

• The referred paper is king: what about the software?

• Even systems without commercial viability are kept proprietary.

• NSF funding shouldn’t go toward proprietary software.
  • that’s the “people’s code”.

Technology Transfer

• Perennial issue for academic research.

• Corporate spin-offs aren’t charitable technology transfer.
  • Does it fulfill University’s 501(c)(3) mission?
  • IRS legality is an “open question”. [Milton2010]
• Obama’s Jobs Council says:
  • “the Administration should test an ‘open-source’ approach to tech transfer and commercialization.” [JobsCouncil2011]

• Academia should take lead here.

Haskell

• Haskell wasn’t merely an academic language:

• University of Glasgow released implementation as Free Software.

• Many contributors; both volunteer & for-profit industry interest.

• Now widely used Free Software programming language.

• Reference: [Hudak2007]

What Your Students Need

• Linux-based systems are everywhere (Android, etc.).

• So many other FLOSS systems are standard.

• Your students need to know how to contribute.

• FLOSS contribution should be a standard course:
  • Just like Software Engineering or Algorithms.

How NGOs Can Help?

• FLOSS communities are notoriously difficult to engage with.

• Purely industry-centered “communities” are common.
  • But designed as a trade associations.
• What’s the space in-between academia & industry in FLOSS:
  • The FLOSS 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.
  • (Same tax status as Universities).

What’s Conservancy Do?

• Project communities join.

• Become part of the org (as if they’d incorporated a non-profit).

• Conservancy handles grants, donations, legal issues.
  • anything other than coding that needs done.

• Becomes a center-point for collaboration & communication with project.

References

More Info / Talk License

• URLs / Social Networking / Email:
  • Conservancy: sfconservancy.org & @conservancy
  • Me: faif.us, ebb.org/bkuhn & @bkuhn (identi.ca only)
  • Slides at: ebb.org/bkuhn/talks & gitorious.org/bkuhn/talks (source)