4 ms·

Disagree. While the taxpayers funded it, the taxpayers also get the benefit from others paying for it. Charging for the tech gives them information about what o

Disagree. While the taxpayers funded it, the taxpayers also get the benefit from others paying for it. Charging for the tech gives them information about what others find valuable, so is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time.

atmosx 12y ago
Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see reason in your reasoning. There are other ways to find out the what is important, ways that are less prone to errors, ESPECIALLY for research...
- garric 12y ago
  It's not just you, though it sounds like his reasoning is based around the ideological context of conflating "democratic choice" with "choice in a market". The role of price is a principal guarantor of democracy, after all. /sardonic
  - ganeumann 12y ago
    The part about "democratic choice" should be handled by our "democratically elected leaders." But I don't think I really understand your point at all. What does selling the IP v. giving it away have to do with democratic choice? My point was that selling the IP instead of giving it away is revenue neutral to society (and, in fact, a positive to the taxpayers who are not buying the IP) and so selling it does not decrease welfare and may well improve it if it provides some data to the agency on what the users of their research value. This is entirely unlike what happens with NSF-funded research which is given away to journals who charge a fortune to read it. In this latter case (unless you think that peer-review is incredibly valuable, which no one besides the publishers seem to believe) the overall effect is welfare reducing.
- dkural 12y ago
  He's saying putting a price on it helps gauge market demand as expressed by willingness to pay, a signal that people find it valuable. What's so unreasonable about that? He didn't say it is a way to find what's important, he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on.
  - benologist 12y ago
    Why does this matter to the NSA? They're not a for-profit company and their needs are surely different to for-profit companies so why would they optimize anything on sales?
    - irollboozers 12y ago
      Unfortunately, there just aren't many good metrics for future potential scientific value. It's not like you can just give NSA / DARPA / NIH one impact factor, as weird as that sounds.
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    > he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on. No, he didn't, he said: > is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time anyone who has looked at basic research knows that immediate commercialization potential is a horrible guide for where to spend time. As a quick example, would you pay for someone to research the immune systems of sharks and camels? No technology transfer office can sell a description of how the immune systems work. It seems ridiculous. But after years were spent researching these topics, describing them in detail in the publicly available literature, companies have taken features of these systems and built products based on them. The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science that would not be funded by companies because it does not appear prima facie to have commercial application.
    - dkural 12y ago
      Actually, he is saying "what others find valuable is an important signal for research", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with taking into consideration what others find commercially valuable - because NSA is not a "fundamental sciences" research organization. I agree that NSF should pursue what scientists find interesting/important and disregard commercial concerns. NIH will often come ahead doing that as well. On the other hand, let's look at NSA - They develop technologies for spying on people. They write software & do a bunch of other applied work detailed in that PDF. I don't think they should run a business either, but NSAs primary aim is not science. If they go the extra mile beyond publishing a paper and want to license their code / tech to companies for a fee, I don't see why that's a problem. Often some exclusive access or license can spur further investment. I do think open access to all can & often also spurs innovation - but not always. Pharma for instance depends on a government-granted monopoly on the manufacture of a small molecule in the form of a patent, to ensure it can recoup its costs of R&D and indirectly bribing prescribing doctors & paying for ads.
higherpurpose 12y ago
The government is not a business. It shouldn't act as a business. There's FAR more value from researching a technology with taxpayer money and then allowing everyone to use the results of that technology, rather than a few select companies (to which they have to give the stamp of approval, meaning there can also be selection bias)
_eqet 12y ago
Why not just use track the number of downloads or pull requests for this metric?

atmosx 12y ago

Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see reason in your reasoning. There are other ways to find out the what is important, ways that are less prone to errors, ESPECIALLY for research...

garric 12y ago
It's not just you, though it sounds like his reasoning is based around the ideological context of conflating "democratic choice" with "choice in a market". The role of price is a principal guarantor of democracy, after all. /sardonic
- ganeumann 12y ago
  The part about "democratic choice" should be handled by our "democratically elected leaders." But I don't think I really understand your point at all. What does selling the IP v. giving it away have to do with democratic choice? My point was that selling the IP instead of giving it away is revenue neutral to society (and, in fact, a positive to the taxpayers who are not buying the IP) and so selling it does not decrease welfare and may well improve it if it provides some data to the agency on what the users of their research value. This is entirely unlike what happens with NSF-funded research which is given away to journals who charge a fortune to read it. In this latter case (unless you think that peer-review is incredibly valuable, which no one besides the publishers seem to believe) the overall effect is welfare reducing.
dkural 12y ago
He's saying putting a price on it helps gauge market demand as expressed by willingness to pay, a signal that people find it valuable. What's so unreasonable about that? He didn't say it is a way to find what's important, he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on.
- benologist 12y ago
  Why does this matter to the NSA? They're not a for-profit company and their needs are surely different to for-profit companies so why would they optimize anything on sales?
  - irollboozers 12y ago
    Unfortunately, there just aren't many good metrics for future potential scientific value. It's not like you can just give NSA / DARPA / NIH one impact factor, as weird as that sounds.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  > he said it is an important signal to find what people value enough to spend their money on. No, he didn't, he said: > is an important signal as to where they should spend their research time anyone who has looked at basic research knows that immediate commercialization potential is a horrible guide for where to spend time. As a quick example, would you pay for someone to research the immune systems of sharks and camels? No technology transfer office can sell a description of how the immune systems work. It seems ridiculous. But after years were spent researching these topics, describing them in detail in the publicly available literature, companies have taken features of these systems and built products based on them. The goal of government-funded research is not to run a business, directing research into immediate commercialization, it is to do basic science that would not be funded by companies because it does not appear prima facie to have commercial application.
  - dkural 12y ago
    Actually, he is saying "what others find valuable is an important signal for research", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with taking into consideration what others find commercially valuable - because NSA is not a "fundamental sciences" research organization. I agree that NSF should pursue what scientists find interesting/important and disregard commercial concerns. NIH will often come ahead doing that as well. On the other hand, let's look at NSA - They develop technologies for spying on people. They write software & do a bunch of other applied work detailed in that PDF. I don't think they should run a business either, but NSAs primary aim is not science. If they go the extra mile beyond publishing a paper and want to license their code / tech to companies for a fee, I don't see why that's a problem. Often some exclusive access or license can spur further investment. I do think open access to all can & often also spurs innovation - but not always. Pharma for instance depends on a government-granted monopoly on the manufacture of a small molecule in the form of a patent, to ensure it can recoup its costs of R&D and indirectly bribing prescribing doctors & paying for ads.

higherpurpose 12y ago

The government is not a business. It shouldn't act as a business. There's FAR more value from researching a technology with taxpayer money and then allowing everyone to use the results of that technology, rather than a few select companies (to which they have to give the stamp of approval, meaning there can also be selection bias)

_eqet 12y ago

Why not just use track the number of downloads or pull requests for this metric?