Noncommercial independent collaborations

For a counter example just to show the more typical situation and why
upfront agreement to free licenses are so important, many years ago as a
contractor I developed software to make GUIs easier to build in
VisualWorks Smalltalk for a insurance company, but much as I'd like to
continue to view and use and improve and distribute that code, I can't
because of restrictive licensing agreements resulting in my not having
access to it or any right to do such things. Sure, I might try to
reinvent all those many months of work and refinement (including by
others) but I don't have the time or energy for doing it over... While
at some point the company might release the code back to me when it is
of no big value to them anymore, at that point, it may not be of much
value to anyone else, as alternatives replace it. So in this case, the
spirit is willing, but the license is weak. :-) [By the way, note that
if I lived in some European countries, my rights as an author would have
been better protected (if I understand that correctly) and I might still
have been able to retain access to some of the code; the difference is
also one of culture in terms of what are expected in contract
negotiations.]

One difference between then and now is that had I developed that code
now, the company I did it for might have been more willing to consider
an argument for freeing the source code to reduce their maintenance
costs, because these ideas of voluntary collaboration have spread among
programmers and their managers as a culture.

[And now for some gratuitous NASA bashing from frustration!]

Eventually that free culture may spread completely through NASA, and we
won't be faced with the paradox of a government agency losing engineers
(according to a slashdot post I read long ago) because they can't stand
to see their work put on a shelf and the patents and copyrights they
produce kept proprietary and sold off.

Two examples:

http://tech-transfer.larc.nasa.gov/patent.htm
"NASA owns over 1,000 patents and patent applications which protect
[from whom? from what? from use?] inventions in hundreds of different
subject-matter categories. ... All NASA licenses are individually
negotiated with the prospective licensee, and each license contains
terms concerning commercialization (practical application), license
duration, royalties, and periodic reporting."

http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/cosmic/
Example license excerpts for "DET MPS: The GSFC Energy Balance Program,
Direct Energy Transfer/Multimission Spacecraft Modular Power System"

"This software requires that you print out a license agreement, sign
it, and fax it to Open Channel Foundation [before downloading]"

"Specifically regarding the right to modify the Software, RECIPIENT
may make Modifications to the Software only for non-commercial, private
internal purposes."

So, the software is a dead end for all practical purposes even when you
can get the source code after a hassle. It is not free. All those tax
dollars and late nights by engineers giving their all to help humanity
get into space -- and it's pretty much wasted as it produced an artifact
that can't evolve. [It's not entirely wasted as some learning went
on...] And if I try to write something similar after agreeing to that
license and purusing the source code to get some ideas, I've set myself
up at risk for a copyright infringement lawsuit, because copyright is so
broadly construed these days to include anything similar in structure
etc., way past the original intent in the US Constitution.

All NASA had to do was put the darn thing on a web site in the public
domain or GPL or another free license, but instead they pay probably pay
megabucks to a "non-profit" and retard space sttlement in the process.
Why? It's just so sad -- it's a mindset. Maybe NASA is so busy trying to
ensure it can prove it is useful from patent revenue and signed licenses
that it is ensuring it is useless.

In any case, I think a tangent to a collaborative effort could be to get
NASA and other public agencies to make their R&D freely available.
NASA's got useful knowledge if it can just be pried out of the
orgnaization and set free.

--Paul Fernhout