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The parallels aren't perfect. The analogy I see is that there's a large number of people working on a topic at a university. That topic is of likely commercial

by dalke 11y ago

The parallels aren't perfect. The analogy I see is that there's a large number of people working on a topic at a university. That topic is of likely commercial value. A company/two companies hire out most of the people who work on the topic. The research at the original university is severely curtailed. (Quoting Stallman about that event in the 1980s, "Nobody had envisioned that the AI lab's hacker group would be wiped out, but it was".) Another example might be when Netscape hired many of the original NCSA Mosaic developers. However, that was not a major research component at NCSA, so it's a much worse analogy.

lispm 11y ago
> The analogy I see is that there's a large number of people working on a topic at a university. That topic is of likely commercial value. The MIT AI Lab projets like the Lisp Machine were financed by DARPA. D stands for Defense and ARPA for Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was always expected that the research was paying back with real applications and improved defense capabilities. Remember, it was cold war money. The Lisp Machine companies LMI and Symbolics were basically startups founded by people of the MIT AI Lab. Stallman was at best naive. What did he expect? That government/DARPA would finance his hacker paradise without actual results indefinitely? The MIT AI Lab cost huge amount of money and was a part of a DARPA research and budget plan. Commercialization of the research was a part of the plan. The companies then should work on bringing research results into deployment or enabling more specific research - DEFENSE stuff. For example many of the early Lisp Machines went straight into SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) research. > Nobody had envisioned that the AI lab's hacker group would be wiped out, but it was" Maybe he should have talked to the lab director, checked with the DARPA director, should have looked at the business plans of LMI and Symbolics, etc. etc. Then he would have known what was going on. Did he expect that Greenblatt founded LMI, Inc. to create a new computer company and did not need any people? Where should the Lisp hard- and software experts be coming from? The market? Which one? There was none. This was all new stuff, straight out of university research - financed by DARPA for DARPA. Thus LMI people were coming from the AI Lab. Symbolics had at it best time almost 1000 employees with over 250 software engineers. Where would these people come from? Background can be found in these two books: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/strategic-computing http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/strategic-computing http://www.newquistbooks.com/brainmakers/brainmakers.html http://www.newquistbooks.com/brainmakers/brainmakers.html
- dalke 11y ago
  Uber and CMU had a partnership deal where Uber funded faculty chairs and graduate fellowships. Granted, that was only since February. But did CMU expect that Uber would find their research indefinitely and without actual results? Where did they expect that Uber would get their research staff? Again, I know it's not perfectly parallel. But I don't see why it isn't an historical example of something similar. It's also not like all of the other DARPA projects had the same results. (Eg, MIT’s Architecture Machine Group wasn't decimated as a result of DARPA funding for the Aspen Movie Map, no?)
  - lispm 11y ago
    Symbolics & LMI were founded by MIT people (and a few others) to commercialized the stuff they developed at the MIT AI Lab. The commercialization of the Lisp Machine technology was a joint decision of the sponsor (DARPA), the university (which licensed the stuff) AND the original developers. Other than Stallman, most people were happy with the decision.

by dalke 11y ago

lispm 11y ago

> The analogy I see is that there's a large number of people working on a topic at a university. That topic is of likely commercial value. The MIT AI Lab projets like the Lisp Machine were financed by DARPA. D stands for Defense and ARPA for Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was always expected that the research was paying back with real applications and improved defense capabilities. Remember, it was cold war money. The Lisp Machine companies LMI and Symbolics were basically startups founded by people of the MIT AI Lab. Stallman was at best naive. What did he expect? That government/DARPA would finance his hacker paradise without actual results indefinitely? The MIT AI Lab cost huge amount of money and was a part of a DARPA research and budget plan. Commercialization of the research was a part of the plan. The companies then should work on bringing research results into deployment or enabling more specific research - DEFENSE stuff. For example many of the early Lisp Machines went straight into SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) research. > Nobody had envisioned that the AI lab's hacker group would be wiped out, but it was" Maybe he should have talked to the lab director, checked with the DARPA director, should have looked at the business plans of LMI and Symbolics, etc. etc. Then he would have known what was going on. Did he expect that Greenblatt founded LMI, Inc. to create a new computer company and did not need any people? Where should the Lisp hard- and software experts be coming from? The market? Which one? There was none. This was all new stuff, straight out of university research - financed by DARPA for DARPA. Thus LMI people were coming from the AI Lab. Symbolics had at it best time almost 1000 employees with over 250 software engineers. Where would these people come from? Background can be found in these two books: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/strategic-computing http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/strategic-computing http://www.newquistbooks.com/brainmakers/brainmakers.html http://www.newquistbooks.com/brainmakers/brainmakers.html

dalke 11y ago
Uber and CMU had a partnership deal where Uber funded faculty chairs and graduate fellowships. Granted, that was only since February. But did CMU expect that Uber would find their research indefinitely and without actual results? Where did they expect that Uber would get their research staff? Again, I know it's not perfectly parallel. But I don't see why it isn't an historical example of something similar. It's also not like all of the other DARPA projects had the same results. (Eg, MIT’s Architecture Machine Group wasn't decimated as a result of DARPA funding for the Aspen Movie Map, no?)
- lispm 11y ago
  Symbolics & LMI were founded by MIT people (and a few others) to commercialized the stuff they developed at the MIT AI Lab. The commercialization of the Lisp Machine technology was a joint decision of the sponsor (DARPA), the university (which licensed the stuff) AND the original developers. Other than Stallman, most people were happy with the decision.