[rayiner]

Consider Kickstarter. Just because the public pays for the development of the product, does that mean the product should be free (or at least, sold at the cost of materials)?

I call this the "MIT model" of R&D. MIT, moreso than Stanford, is famous for participating in the military-industrial-educational complex. It's anything but ideologically pure, but it's also been amazingly successful at developing "hard" technology.

[dwg]

Kickstarter is considerably different:

1. Donors are able to choose which projects to contribute to.

2. There is often a direct benefit associated with the contribution, such as a discount, advanced release, or special version of the product.

IMO Contributing to a Kickstarter project is much more like shopping than it is like paying taxes or making charitable donations.

[rayiner]

Your (2) is a valid point. The public should get some sort of discount when public funding leads to patentable technology, such as a shortened term. But (1) is neither here nor there. A necessary principle of Kickstarter is that the developer of a product should be able to keep some upside from doing the actual work, even when other people pay for the development.[1] Whether that investment is public or private is irrelevant.

[1] A startup would also never take an investment where the VC committed to paying all development costs, but demanded 100% of the profits in return.

[themartorana]

Whether that investment is public or private is irrelevant.

It's not at all irrelevant. With Kickstarter, the private transaction is between two parties that are fully aware of the terms of the transaction, and explicitly agree to them.

In the case of taxpayer money paying for university R&D that is then privatized and locked away, I find that repugnant. I am a party to the transaction that does not at all agree with the way this works, that does not at all agree with my money flowing to this private company for no benefit to me or the public or the society in which I am a participant.

[rayiner]

You're mixing up two issues here.

Say someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to sell your house for $500,000. Your neighbor's almost identical house sold for $490,000 just a few weeks ago.

Do you agree that both points can be true at the same time:

1) It's wrong to hold a gun to someone's head to force them to sell a house.

2) $500,000 is a reasonable price for the house.

Now, realize that the two issues are independent. You've got a gun to your head, no matter what price you get for the house, and the price for the house is reasonable or not whether or not you've got a gun to your head.

Now, so long as you support government subsidization of R&D, you're stuck with (1). Your dollars are paying for something and you have no choice or control. But your argument isn't that the government shouldn't support R&D with public money, so your beef must really be (2)--you think the government is getting a bad deal for the money. Whether the deal is good or bad can be evaluated standing alone.

Objectively, you're right--the public should get some sort of discount. But it's also true that it's unreasonable to demand that the technology be released freely. Just because you invest the money to develop something does not mean the developer should get zero upside on the arrangement. That's not how it works in any other context.

This isn't a theoretical nit-pick. Practically, the government is just another investor. If you constrain the government to only offering unreasonably bad deals, then you'll only attract bad prospects that have no other options.

[themartorana]

> But it's also true that it's unreasonable to demand that the technology be released freely.

I disagree entirely with this blanket statement. In fact, somewhere in this thread you'll find a university researcher speaking to how me eventually got everything open sources, and how certain funding is coming with open-source requirements.

We can debate whether or not it's in the public interest for the tech to be released, but it's never unreasonable to consider whether it should be released freely.

> Now, realize that the two issues are independent.

No they're not. #2 is entirely irrelevant. This is why eminent domain laws are so hotly debated - because fair compensation is often not fair compensation.

> Practically, the government is just another investor.

There is no investor that invests money in to private enterprise and gets no return when that private enterprise profits.

[rayiner]

> I disagree entirely with this blanket statement. In fact, somewhere in this thread you'll find a university researcher speaking to how me eventually got everything open sources, and how certain funding is coming with open-source requirements.

When I say "reasonable" I mean commercially reasonable. There's a certain idealism about academia, which I don't subscribe to, but I'm not interested in arguing about it because it's subjective. What I'm talking about is how an investor or company seeking investment would view an offer in the market.

> There is no investor that invests money in to private enterprise and gets no return when that private enterprise profits.

At the same time, no sensible private enterprise takes investment for part of the cost of developing a product, then agrees to give up all rights in the product in return.

I agree the public should get some return when public funding results in patentable technology. But to say that such technology should be released free-and-clear is to say that the public, as investor, should get all the rights to a product just by paying for part of the development cost.

[rebootthesystem]

Not even close to a fair comparison. On Kickstarter you choose what you want to back and, if all goes well, you get something in exchange. And, no, you are not buying a piece of the business or the IP. And you know this before you pledge.

I can't choose not to have my tax money used for grants that keep the results of the research private. I can't even choose what research program, university or researcher it goes to.

[rayiner]

The question is: is it reasonable for researchers to keep the upside when someone else pays for the cost of development? Why does choice matter to answering the question?