From chemistry-request@ccl.net Tue Mar 10 12:34:49 1992
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 92 10:58:50 EST
From: "G. Ravishanker" <ravishan@swan.wesleyan.EDU>
Subject: Commercialization of software
To: chemistry@ccl.net
Status: R


Hi

As we have seen in the past as well as present, several molecular
modelling/MD packages developed in academic institutions have been
commercialized in one form or other - mostly by aligning with a software
company that markets the software with added functionalities and features.

I am interested in knowing the views of the scientific community on
several issues. I know that this discussion is likely to drain the
bandwidth of the network (I hope so...), but I feel that this is an
important issue.

	1. What are the ethical issues on taking a product that was
produced primarily by federal funding of one form or another and
commercializing it?

	2. Who really owns the software? The graduate students, and
postdocs who really wrote the piece of code, or the professor under (or
with) whom they worked, or the academic institution itself, or finally the
US Govt. Agency that funded the project?

	3. Since there is a considerable amount of money to be made in
commercializing the software, who should and how should the money be
divided? Do you go looking for all the participants of the project and
geve them some sort of a share, or do you simply ignore them....

	4. If you think you have some software with commercial potential,
what are all the legal implications that you need to sort out before
approaching anyone?

There can be several other questions along these lines and any
contributions from those who have commercialized their software will
especially be useful. 

Thank you in advance.

Ravi