[MURG] Uploading IP (intellectual property)

[Yan King Yin]

From: cat13 at illrepute.org

>All right: the source of our difference is in considering the products of
>research to be patents.  What's important to you is securing a financial
>return; I'm arguing for the importance of getting data to as many researchers
>as possible.  The 'products of research', for you, are patents; the 'products
>of research', for me, are data.

That's a good point, and I do agree that in principle, discoveries
should not be patentable because there is only one physical world
whereas the space for designs is huge.

I think the products of research can also include the invention
of techniques to do something, such as algorithms and proteomic
techniques. These are the things I propose the consortium to
establish patents for.

>> A reward system generally assigns credits to people who
>> have made efforts to *create* a certain product. Any
>> corporate management deals with this issue, although some
>> would say it's not all-important.
>
>I'm familiar with the purpose of reward systems in general.  I was asking
>why you wanted one.

Why do you question such a common motive? Are you questioning
why software companies want to make money and not give out
software for free?

>> The open source movement generally overlooks the reward
>> issue and therefore has a serious problem.
>
>I could say "it's worked pretty well for a pretty long time," and be right,
>but it might be more useful if I pointed out that the goals of the open
>source movement are different from yours; the open source movement would
>have serious problems were it invented to make money for YKY, but since it
>has other ends, I dispute your claim.

It worked in a historical context, when software is also
being commercialized at the same time. If you take
competition into consideration, you have to admit that
both commericial and open-source paradigms will co-exist.
for quite some time. To claim that open-source is superior
and therefore everyone should do that is not looking at
the facts.

>Let's not follow the open-source model.
>Instead, why don't we follow the model under which science has progressed to
>date?  Why don't we follow the peer-review model?  Why don't we follow the
>shoulders-of-giants model?

Science and technology have always been commercialized.
Think about electricity, drugs, not to mention the genome
project.

>How will the consortium fund the entire project?  I understand that it will
>repay contributors after this many-decades-or-centuries-long project is over,
>but how will it find enough contributors willing to put in enough resources?

If we don't complete the loop of contribution-reward,
then progress would likely be even slower. The reward
system is what motivates people to work towards a goal.
In reality it is the difference between being able to
make a living doing MU research versus doing research
that is only indirectly related to MU.

>I'm not sure enough wealth currently exists to borrow.  Even if it did, why
>would J. Random Investor lend when no return is expected within his lifetime?

The tokens can be traded publicly and therefore it
can be passed from hand to hand, just like stocks.
To be more exact it's like a long-maturity bond, with
its particular level of risks attached. This is no
different than other bonds being traded on the stock
market.

YKY


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