>If they give Purdue grant money to do the research and this process results, then they make it both free to implement and required, then the result is a "rewar

>If they give Purdue grant money to do the research and this process results, then they make it both free to implement and required, then the result is a "reward" where there is less polluted water out there, everywhere. This is pure fantasy. Grant money is scarce and drying up everywhere. Not two weeks ago, this administration put a $1 billion dollar cut to the National Science Foundation[1] on the table. Because they are pursuing a patent on this process, revenue generated by the licensure of this product will flow to the institutions supporting that research. Companies can then be incentivized to pursue licensure. The scientist that discovered insulin, Sir Frederick Banting, forfeited his right to profit from the patenting of his discovery[2], and yet we have companies to this day restricting supply to wring hundreds of dollars per dose out of patients that depend on the drug. The patent isn't the problem. > As a thought exercise, compare how much you have benefited from the gcc tools suite being "free and unpatented" versus having it cost you every time you used it. You present a false dichotomy: that GCC tools be free/unpatented vs having them cost every person on every usage. Just yesterday we saw posts on HN describing the struggle of open source community sustainability and undue burdens on maintainers of free software. When multi-billion dollar corporations depend on free and open source software, they should be made to contribute in some way. 1. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433507-trump-proposes-cutting-national-science-foundation-budget-by-billion-dollars https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433507-trump-pro... 2. http://www.cdnmedhall.org/inductees/sir-frederick-banting http://www.cdnmedhall.org/inductees/sir-frederick-banting