Half of taxpayer funded research will soon be available to the public

Re:Half of taxpayer funded research will soon be available t... by dominotw on Monday January 20, 2014 @06:08PM (#7092304)

>It's pretty terrible that some academic can take public money to fund his research, then take out a patent on the result and prevent his financiers from using an 'invention'.

Wouldn't that mean that researchers would be less motivated ?

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Re:Half of taxpayer funded research will soon be available t... by sparkie on Monday January 20, 2014 @06:26PM (#7092361)

I doubt it.

Many researchers aren't businessmen, the simply want to scratch an itch, and not want to work tedious day jobs. If they can make a living while doing something they enjoy, all is great.

Except that very rarely does wanting to scratch an itch coincide with obtaining funds to do so. As a result, the researcher needs to make concessions to his own research goals, or the quality of it, in order to convince people who don't understand it that it has some value, in order to finance it. If not, they're gonna be stuck researching something they have little or no interest in, or back to the day job. This is the real motivation killer.

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Re:Half of taxpayer funded research will soon be available t... by hrkristian on Monday January 20, 2014 @06:15PM (#7092321)

No, it means motivation would come from elsewhere, we're -as a society- just sinking further and further into a mindset where money is the one and only way for anything to get done. Sickening.

The hammer was invented in spite of the fact it was impossible to control the proliferation of its design.

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