Amerikanische Spitzenuniveritäten machen Software aus Forschungsprojekten frei zugänglich. Die New York Times schreibt:
To remove obstacles to joint research, four leading technology companies and seven American universities have agreed on principles for making software developed in collaborative projects freely available.
The legal wrangling over intellectual property rights in research projects involving universities and companies, specialists say, can take months, sometimes more than a year… „This a great start to addressing the problem,“ said Peter A. Freeman, assistant director for computer and information science and engineering at the National Science Foundation. „It’s a recognition by both sides that for precompetitive research, ‚It’s the science, stupid.‘ It’s not the intellectual property.“
The companies involved in the agreement … are I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Cisco. The educational partners are the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the universities of Stanford, California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois and Texas [via Joho the Blog].
Hoffentlich wirkt das Abkommen auch in Europa als Vorbild! Wie viele Projekte in der angewandten Forschung enden als Ruinen, weil niemand wagt, die Ergebnisse als Open Source/Open Content zu veröffentlichen?