Sponsored Libre Research Agreements to Create Free and Open Source Software and Hardware

Abstract

As a growing number of companies reject intellectual property (IP) monopoly-based business models to embrace libre product development of free and open source hardware and software, there is an urgent need to refurbish the instruments of university-corporate research partnerships. These partnerships generally use a proprietary standard research agreement (PSRA), which for historical reasons contains significant IP monopoly language and restrictions for both the company and the university. Such standard research agreements thus create an artificial barrier to innovation as both companies using a libre model and universities they wish to collaborate with must invest significantly to restructure the contracts. To solve this problem, this article provides a new Sponsored Libre Research Agreement (SLRA). The differences between the agreements are detailed. The advantages of using an SLRA are provided for any type of company and include: (1) minimizing research investments on reporting requirements; (2) reducing delays related to confidentiality and publication embargos; and (3) reducing both transaction and legal costs as well as research time losses associated with IP. Moving to libre agreements both speeds up and reduces costs for setting up collaborative research. Under the SLRA, university researchers can spend more time innovating for the same investment. Inventions 2018, 3, 44 2 of 11 that it represents a significant change in the career trajectory of software developers [25] and is dominating major areas of computing. For example, Android, an open source-based operating system, is the world's most popular operating system [26], 97% of the world's supercomputers use GNU/Linux [27], and major Internet-based corporations use and develop FOSS including: Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Twitter and Facebook. These companies and others use FOSS because of superior technical performance, more flexible design and reduced research and development (R&D) costs [28]. Inventions 2018, 3, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 11

Economic savings for scientific free and open source technology: A review

“…This study had several limitations. First, the databases selected are far from a complete survey of all open source scientific hardware as it has grown to be quite substantial as evidence from Google Scholar results [3] as well as the list maintained on Appropedia ( https://www.appropedia.org/Open-source_Lab ). Last year (2019) alone, for example, records over 1,500 articles with the term “open source hardware” indexed by Google Scholar.…”

“…FOSH provides the “code” for hardware including the bill of materials, schematics, instructions, CAD designs, and other information needed to recreate a physical artifact. The growth of FOSH within academia has been rapid in the last decade and appears to be tracking the rise of free and open source software (FOSS) with about a 20-year lag [3] . Specifically, the growth of articles on FOSH indexed by Google Scholar are following an exponential increase roughly 20 years behind the same growth observed in FOSS [3] .…”

“…The growth of FOSH within academia has been rapid in the last decade and appears to be tracking the rise of free and open source software (FOSS) with about a 20-year lag [3] . Specifically, the growth of articles on FOSH indexed by Google Scholar are following an exponential increase roughly 20 years behind the same growth observed in FOSS [3] . Four advantages of free and open source technologies over traditional product design have been identified by Baden et al [4] : 1) designs are not only free, but are developed by users, which ensure suitability for a given scientific task; 2) building your own experimental equipment yields a much deeper understanding of the principles underlying its design and a better awareness of its limits, which leads to better science; 3) manufacturing is immediate and local, which empowers laboratories all over the world, and 4) the open source movement is a global phenomenon, which recruits talented builders/makers and software coders from outside the traditional scientific establishment to help design and fabricate superior devices.…”

From Open Access to Open Science: The Path From Scientific Reality to Open Scientific Communication

“…A change in the tradition of scientific practice in the sense of a "scientific revolution" (Kuhn, 2012) has not (yet) occurred. However, if we consider the exponential rise of open source technologies' use in the sciences as denoted by references in the literature (Pearce, 2018b) as well as the proliferation of open access repositories and freely accessible digital articles (Pinfield et al, 2014), there is clearly a threat to the historical proprietary science and publishing paradigm. The reasons and influencing factors for these developments in science and research are presented below in two parts: first, empirically, ethnographically, and experimentally tested in documenting the development of the first completely open humanities-based PhD thesis; second, based on the outcome of the first part, to review discuss and summarize the ongoing debate about open access and open science.…”

Open-Source Grinding Machine for Compression Screw Manufacturing

“…The proven effectiveness of the free and open-source software movement [1,2] is being replicated by the open-hardware community [3] with an approximately 15-year lag [4]. Open hardware is accelerated by platform technologies such as the Arduino electronics rapid prototyping platform [5,6] and its derivative, the self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) project [7][8][9].…”