I think that would be taking it one step too far. Besides, they are probably not interested anyway.

KLiK, I'm guessing most projects, if not all, have researchers with connections to commercial interest groups. What I'm asking for is that WCG formulates a code of ethics and best conduct paper which all internal and external researchers have to sign. This paper should, at the very least, require them to list all current employers, but perhaps also commercial interest group collaborators that are relevant to the project.

Without it, today's system is encouraging fraudulent behavior.

I want transparency, not to ban those researchers who have some kind of corporate connection. That way some, like you in the CEP2 case, will be able to steer away from projects you don't want to donate your computing time to.

I've been aware of the irregularities in the CEP2 project since I started crunching, but have decided to continue anyway. I think the project is too important to ignore. See? This is how it should be. Transparent requests for help followed by informed, eyes open donations.

The database is not updated in real time. This gives some OLED companies ample time to patent molecules ahead of corporations that don't have employees working inside the project or cooperating with the project, and that's OK, as long as the donors are aware of it. This is not the case today.


I too, but I still want transparency. I don't know why this is even debated -- or not. WCG, who is the only one able to disinfect the wound, is silent. Transparency is morally self-evident, especially when you're soliciting people for money, which is what WCG is doing when they're asking us to donate computer time and in the process ending up having to pay higher energy bills. I want to donate, but not to anybody.

Let me explain. If my only concern was how to "contribute to the sum of human knowledge", I could just as well have given the money directly to an OLED company, and let them use it to pay their electric bills when their high performance computers crunch these algorithms. For obvious reasons this approach doesn't appeal to me. Why, because this approach doesn't let anyone "create solutions to the world's problems".

This is what happens when some pro-profit corporations -- and all healthy corporations are entirely motivated by greed, or they wouldn't be financially healthy -- get access to pre-released data. They lock the knowledge into a proprietary solution with the sole purpose of extracting maximum financial return, as opposed to the nonprofit goal, which is to extract maximum social return. I know that having the researchers signing a "code of ethics and best conduct"-letter wont prevent leaks, but it will mitigate the problem and we will be donating our money in a more transparent manner. How can that be wrong? WCG?

IBM?

You can patent most things that improves function or form, and a new organic molecule would certainly establish novelty and invention, even if it, by that time, has become publicly available information. And let's not forget that the database only represents mathematical approximations, guesswork, not the actual molecule's physical properties, which is what the patent application is based on. The database is not updated in real-time and when it comes to patents, it's first come first granted on a country basis. China, for instance, no longer recognizes patents which are not first submitted in China.


Well, you certainly told me ... Why do you assume transparency would "strangle the efforts of anyone trying to actually do anything"? Is it because you think the projects wouldn't be able to withstand the act of illumination, the moral scrutiny? Are you saying I should be quite for the greater good? I disagree. I think people would crunch anyway, just as I'm doing right now with the CEP2 project.

I'm not asking for an arm and a leg. I'm asking the researchers to sign a "code of ethics and best conduct"-letter, where they list all their employers, current and former, during the past 24 months. Why should that be treated as a secret, especially when they are asking people for money?


I'll miss chatting with you ...

Sir, this is the real world. Not some theoretical construct where lawyers outwit each other after throwing a glove on the ground.

OLED companies do not have any agreement with WCG. They are free to conduct their experimental research anyway they want and it's the experimental research that form the basis for a patent application. So if an OLED company submits a patent application, it becomes virtually impossible for outsiders to know how they got their idea to build and test that specific carbon molecule. They could have stumbled upon it by accident or they could have been running their own computer simulations. Who knows? The only way to prove they got the idea from CEP2 is if some insider decides to sing.

Again, the database is a bunch of guesswork, not the physical properties of the carbon based molecules. The patents are based on measured physical properties. Until the values in the database are confirmed in a laboratory, they are not worth anymore than the values derived from a beer drinking and dart throwing monkey. 99% of crunchers are not aware of this. They think the values are absolute physical values. Good enough to be written in stone. Just as they are not aware of the fluid boundaries between the researchers and different commercial interest groups. Why? Because they trust WCG, who is telling them only the rosy parts of the story.


All this is so superfluous. Why discuss these farfetched what-ifs, when all I'm doing is asking -- I'm now getting tired of repeating myself, so I'm just going to copy and paste my previous comment -- "the researchers to sign a "code of ethics and best conduct"-letter, where they list all their employers, current and former, during the past 24 months. Why should that be treated as a secret, especially when they are asking people for their money?"

IBM?

Yes, IBM. I want to smear this *** on them.


*edited to appropriate forum language - ErikaT