Hacker News Reader

Comment by numbsafari | Hacker News Reader

Something I’ve been curious about for a while is why more universities don’t get involved in sponsoring critical projects. In theory it could provide an interesting non-academic path for students and professors and, as you’ve pointed out, the funding model of the U would make sense here.

I’m curious… would you consider having a “faculty” of “tenured” maintainers who receive livable funding and support based on a history of significant contribution? I could imagine something like “named chairs” and professorships you see for some tenured folks in academia. This could be useful for key project leaders, and contributors. In addition, any kind of function to train and develop the next generation of maintainers?

View on HN

This would very much make sense and generate direct real world products. However, I fear academia is in itself a very competitive space for resources that doesn't necessarily want to open up for outsiders.

Well universities have no qualms about making private relationships to help subsidize private research. Let's not worry about problems that don't exist or are trivially solved.

Can you give an example of what you mean?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/06/academi...

https://archive.ph/0MzkZ

https://www.wired.com/story/top-ai-researchers-financial-bac...

I live in Cambridge, MA there are dozens of these relationships going on; big tech offers lucrative access to cutting edge hardware in return for closed research.

Just more insidious ways on how big tech requires massive amounts of welfare to exist and persist.

I might be misreading, but at least the first article looks more like private companies subsidising public research, and not the other way round.

Ah yes, they totally subsidize public research with no strings attach. Right up there with cigarette companies subsidizing public health research. Or oil companies subsidizing public research. Or all the other various industries funding research that somehow always seems to agree with what they want, weird right?

Good lord. Why do you think these greedy entities that have devoted their entire lifespans fucking over consumers, competitors, nations, and children are suddenly having a change of heart and aren't enforcing their will upon researchers?

While that may have felt good to write, I'm not sure that it changes the fact that this sounds like private funding of public research, rather than as was stated, public funding of private research.

Your comment I was replying to, as an aide-mémoire:

> I live in Cambridge, MA there are dozens of these relationships going on; big tech offers lucrative access to cutting edge hardware in return for closed research.

> Just more insidious ways on how big tech requires massive amounts of welfare to exist and persist.

Your first sentence and second sentence don't reconcile in practice.

Well, speaking in the case of the US, this would constitute product development which is well outside the scope of what a 501(c)(3) organization should be doing, which could thereby jeopardize their tax status? Or, in the case of a state-run university, this raises all kinds of issues regarding how tax money is being given away to random schmoes instead of benefitting the public at large.

So, yeah, there's plenty of reasons why they don't do that.

Open source wouldn't have a funding problem if people would stop being so averse to just paying for what they use. Maybe... the world should stop expecting something for nothing.

> Well, speaking in the case of the US, this would constitute product development which is well outside the scope of what a 501(c)(3) organization should be doing, which could thereby jeopardize their tax status?

Doesn't this apply only to for-profit products? There's plenty of 501c3's with free "products".

It is not about whether or not it is available for free, at cost, or otherwise, but whether or not the activity has the character of commercial product development. It's what the product is used for, not what price it's set at. A 501(c)(3) directly developing, or funding the development, of commercial software is not engaged in charitable, educational, or other exempt activities.

For reference: This is exactly what happened to the Yorba Foundation, and numerous others since then.[1]

[1] https://www.stradley.com/business-vantage-point-blog/irs-con...

There's clearly a change going on in the US government, and it very well may be that organizations such as Mozilla, FreeBSD, and Apache could all lose their 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in years to come.

At the end of the day though, 501(c)(3) status is a purely US concept, doesn't apply to international organizations internationally, and doesn't necessarily mean that you "can't" do what anyone is discussing here. It just means that folks gonna have to pay taxes and "donations" can't be written off on the taxes of donors.

Perhaps, at the end of the day, not pursuing tax-exemption/charity status is a more honest approach. It certainly doesn't precluding doing any of what has been discussed, it just changes the financial efficiency.

Using the model of the university and various tenured profs, I'm not sure what you are saying is true. But, perhaps it's a misunderstanding of what I was intending.

I see this more as a way to answer the question of things like the maintainers of OpenSSL or sudo. One approach is to fund the "project" and let it deal with all of these questions. Another approach would be to fund the people themselves. So, have a faculty of expert software maintainers, vetted by the governance structure of the OSE. Within that faculty, you could have "adjuncts" and "residents" who have a time-bound grant and set of obligations. If they are successful and their work continues to be relevant, they could eventually apply for one of a defined set of "tenured" positions. Those positions would guarantee them independence and a stable source of income in order to continue their role as a maintainer.

The goal of this "faculty" would be sustainable OSS maintenance (which involves both leadership and contribution), rather than publishing research and teaching classes. So, similar overall structure and approach, but differing goals.

> Using the model of the university and various tenured profs, I'm not sure what you are saying is true. But, perhaps it's a misunderstanding of what I was intending.

Tenured professors are not engaged in commercial product development.

> The goal of this "faculty" would be sustainable OSS maintenance (which involves both leadership and contribution), rather than publishing research and teaching classes.

OSS isn't commercial, per se.

Universities "ship" plenty of "products":

https://www.rcac.purdue.edu/services/hubzero

https://www.scala-lang.org/scala-core/

Which is why app stores and SaaS products thrive, they provide the mechanisms to actually pay for the software one uses.

I love this. Reminds me of MacArthur Foundation's genius grants as well. Linux Foundation has fellows, but it's a small % of budget.

They do. Most big breakthrough software even today is made by university and national labs

Reply on news.ycombinator.com