[FSF India] [simputer@yahoogroups.com: [simputer] Digest Number 139]
Arun
fsf-india@gnu.org.in
Sat, 4 Aug 2001 22:12:38 +0530
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:07:03 +0500 (GMT)
From: V Vinay <vinay@csa.iisc.ernet.in>
Subject: The tax payer and other issues
Hi all,
Warning: This is a long mail. Please do not respond to this email,
especially if you are not prepared to think through and believe you
require any additional clarifications. Our energies are better spent
elsewhere.
> I have been reading the mails and I think that one oft
> the original posters had pointed out that the initial
> development of the Simputer was carried out in IISc,
> banglore. That institute is funded by the tax payers
> money. So, the question arises why does the license
> fee not go to IISc but a private firm.
>
> I have not seen this one answered.
Indeed, this has not been answered. And it seems many other questions.
First, a general comment on the lack of understanding of how publically
financed institutions work. Technologies are not thrown open just because
institutions takes money from the tax payer. On the contrary, they are
protected rigorously. Take the case of path breaking technologies that have
emerged from IIT-Madras; are they in the open? Do you know that some of the
query optimization algorithms and code that is part of Microsoft's database
server is from IIT-Bombay? The list is virtually endless. Non-disclosure is
a norm; it is not the exception.
Speaking for the IISc team, the four of us got together as individuals
working on something beyond our brief. This means that we have not received
any direct funding from any agency (tax paying or otherwise) to subsidise
our efforts. In fact, most of the money put in by the IISc team came at the
cost of our *personal renumeration* from several consultancy projects.
But nevertheless IISc, at best could have got only part of any license fee
as Encore, as employer of the other three trustees, is an equal partner.
This is the reason for setting a non-profit trust. With great wisdom and
sagacity, and what should be regarded as a unique experiment in
academic-industrial interaction, IISc and Encore have deposited any
intellectual property on the Simputer from their respective sides with the
Trust. You should also know that a non-profit trust is not a private firm!
Of course, any money that comes into the trust cannot go to the pockets of
the trustees. You can sleep in peace, the state has enough mechanisms
in place to guarantee this.
IISc is also interested in commercializing the Simputer effort. It took a
major step by allowing, for the first time in India, faculty
entrepreneurship. It has a equity stake in the company so started. (Three
years ago, we probably would have signed an NDA with Encore and got a small
personal compensation for that.)
Now to the economics: it is not worthwhile for anyone to get into
commercial activity in this space unless they have a market for about
100,000 to 200,000 Simputers; until that point the economics does not
work out. The total revenue at say, 2000,000 Simputers is $40
million. And $25,000 will be steep price for this manufacturer??
(This is rhetoric, I am not looking for your answer.)
A manufacturer can pay this fee and make as many boards as they want,
supply them to different "assemblers" or even deliver different
assembled Simputers. Or a company can get into contract manufacturing
agreement in which case it pays the license fee and the manufacturer
does not have to.
I hope I will not see anymore of the incredible questions about paying
license for selling Simputer to 30 friends etc as if the trust is
composed of some robots with the intelligence of a moron. The trust,
let me assure you, is made of very smart thinking people, thank you.
You should recognize by now that the hardware and software on the
Simputer has been thrown open *by choice*; we gave up our monoplistic
position on the Simputer. In doing so, we have only invited
competition to our own companies. TIME Asia, in its coverage, called
this move naive. Hmmm. Were we really smart here! Maybe, maybe
not. But what is the support we get for this decision?
Well, we get ill-informed, shrill and venomous comments by our
so-called tax payers and others, with zero understanding of how a
trust functions and of any underlying economics. And some of these
emails even comes with a line that the information contained in the
email is proprietary to a private company! So I suppose I cannot
comment any further :-)
The success of the Simputer does not depend on its licensing model, or who
its trustees are, or what technologies it uses. It depends on the change it
can make to the people around us. People around the world are excited about
the Simputer for its vision, for offering hope. But we all realize that no
single technology can transform the strata of societies we are looking at.
There are a thousand other things to be done to get this and other countries
out of their sorry present state. That effort is being strengthened by like
minded people who are quitely contributing behind the scenes. Thank God some
of them exist! If any of you think you can contribute, please lend your hand
in your own unique way. Let a thousand ideas bloom! This is what we require
of each one of us.
If the only role you can play is adversial, you can atleast contribute by
bringing silence, golden silence!!
Regards
Vinay
----
Prof. V. Vinay,
Trustee, Simputer Trust
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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 19:55:23 -0400
From: Ozakil Azim <azim@imaginext.com>
Subject: Re: The tax payer and other issues
Vinay,
I beg to disagree with you.
I am not writing this mail to seek clarification from you or your
colleagues. This is an 'open' forum and until such time that you
keep this forum open, I will give vent to 'my' opinions.
we all know that you could opt to retain complete IP rights to
the simputer and license it any way you want to your potential
licensees. and that nobody is stopping you from doing that. and
that you could potentially make millions of dollars personally.
and that you are getting incensed at all the 'unmerited' criticism.
you know what? if you had kept the rights to yourself, you probably
wouldn't have gotten this level of criticism from the 'open-source'
believers.
Please understand that open source rhetoric will sound shrill at
times. did you think the open source path will be easy? that
the open source philosophy is something that can be customized
for varying degrees of openness?
let's all agree to disagree and move on.
you guys are doing a good job. nobody thinks ill of you or your
achievements. everybody has gone on record appreciating your work.
just ignore the criticism if you don't like it. moderate this forum
and delete posts that you don't agree with, if you like.
but please do not think that people in this forum are 'robots with
the intelligence of a moron', either. you need to a build a team
of developers who will be willing to spend their time, as you have
done, freely, to the ongoing development and the success of the
simputer; as hundreds of developers have done for apache etc. already.
do not alienate them before they even get started.
-azim
V Vinay wrote:
>
> Please do not respond to this email, especially if you are not
> prepared to think through and believe you require any additional
> clarifications.
>
> <snip>
>
> I hope I will not see anymore of the incredible questions about paying
> license for selling Simputer to 30 friends etc as if the trust is
> composed of some robots with the intelligence of a moron.
>
> <snip>
>
> Well, we get ill-informed, shrill and venomous comments by our
> so-called tax payers and others, with zero understanding of how a
> trust functions and of any underlying economics.
>
> <snip>
>
> If the only role you can play is adversial, you can atleast contribute by
> bringing silence, golden silence!!
>
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