Releasing Free Software If You Work at a University
In the free software movement, we believe computer users should have the freedom to change and redistribute the software that they use. The “free” in “free software” refers to freedom: it means users have the freedom to run, modify and redistribute the software. Free software contributes to human knowledge, while nonfree software does not. Universities should therefore encourage free software for the sake of advancing human knowledge, just as they should encourage scientists and other scholars to publish their work.
Por desgracia, muchos administradores de universidades tienes una actitud egoísta hacia el software (y hacia la ciencia); ven los programas como oportunidades para generar ingresos, no como oportunidades para contribuir al conocimiento humano. Los desarrolladores de software libre han estado enfrentándose con esta tendencia durante casi 20 años.
When I started developing the GNU operating system, in 1984, my first step was to quit my job at MIT. I did this specifically so that the MIT licensing office would be unable to interfere with releasing GNU as free software. I had planned an approach for licensing the programs in GNU that would ensure that all modified versions must be free software as well—an approach that developed into the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)—and I did not want to have to beg the MIT administration to let me use it.
Over the years, university affiliates have often come to the Free Software Foundation for advice on how to cope with administrators who see software only as something to sell. One good method, applicable even for specifically funded projects, is to base your work on an existing program that was released under the GNU GPL. Then you can tell the administrators, “We're not allowed to release the modified version except under the GNU GPL—any other way would be copyright infringement.” After the dollar signs fade from their eyes, they will usually consent to releasing it as free software.
You can also ask your funding sponsor for help. When a group at NYU developed the GNU Ada Compiler, with funding from the US Air Force, the contract explicitly called for donating the resulting code to the Free Software Foundation. Work out the arrangement with the sponsor first, then politely show the university administration that it is not open to renegotiation. They would rather have a contract to develop free software than no contract at all, so they will most likely go along.
Whatever you do, raise the issue early—well before the program is half finished. At this point, the university still needs you, so you can play hardball: tell the administration you will finish the program, make it usable, if they agree in writing to make it free software (and agree to your choice of free software license). Otherwise you will work on it only enough to write a paper about it, and never make a version good enough to release. When the administrators know their choice is to have a free software package that brings credit to the university or nothing at all, they will usually choose the former.
No todas las universidades tienen las mismas políticas de aprovechamiento. La Universidad de Texas tiene una política que hace fácil publicar software desarrollado allí como software libre y bajo GNU General Public License. Univates en Brasil, y el instituto internacional de tecnología de la información en Hyderabad, India, ambas tienen políticas en favor de la publicación de software bajo licencia GPL. Desarrollando primero el soporte en la facultad, puedes establecer ese tipo de políticas en tú universidad. Presentando el tema como un principio: ¿Tiene la universidad la misión de hacer avanzar el conocimiento humano, o exclusivamente perpetuarse a si misma?
Whatever approach you use, it helps to approach the issue with determination and based on an ethical perspective, as we do in the free software movement. To treat the public ethically, the software should be free—as in freedom—for the whole public.
Many developers of free software profess narrowly practical reasons for doing so: they advocate allowing others to share and change software as an expedient for making software powerful and reliable. If those values motivate you to develop free software, well and good, and thank you for your contribution. But those values do not give you a good footing to stand firm when university administrators pressure or tempt you to make the program nonfree.
En vez de eso, argumentarán que «podemos hacer incluso más poderoso y mejorado con todo el dinero que podemos obtener». Esta afirmación puede o no puede ser realidad al finalizar, pero es difícil demostrar su falsedad por adelantado. Quizás sugieran una licencia para ofrecer copias «libre de cargos, para uso exclusivamente académico», lo cual diría al público general que ellos no se han merecido la libertad, y argumentando que esto obtendrá la cooperación de la academia, que es todo (ellos dicen) lo que necesitas.
If you start from values of convenience alone, it is hard to make a good case for rejecting these dead-end proposals, but you can do it easily if you base your stand on ethical and political values. What good is it to make a program powerful and reliable at the expense of users' freedom? Shouldn't freedom apply outside academia as well as within it? The answers are obvious if freedom and community are among your goals. Free software respects the users' freedom, while nonfree software negates it.
Nada refuerza tanto tu respuesta como saber que la libertad de la comunidad depende, de algún modo, de tí.