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<DIV><FONT size=3>First, take a deep breath ... </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>The basic ideas Charles expresses are, in my view, on
track. But some of</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>the details are biased toward his interests. For example, VisualDOE
and eQUEST</DIV>
<DIV>have both benefited from substantial support from California utilities use
of "Public</DIV>
<DIV>Goods Charge" (PGC) funds. Both have had very substantial investment
by</DIV>
<DIV>their developing companies (Eley for VisualDOE and JJHirsch for
eQUEST.)</DIV>
<DIV>eQUEST is freeware for users and can be licensed by anyone for
further</DIV>
<DIV>development without per copy royalty. VisualDOE, currently, is
marketed</DIV>
<DIV>as a commercial product. So, I do not understand; under the
policy</DIV>
<DIV>proposed is it suggested that eQUEST should be sold for a fee and not
licensed</DIV>
<DIV>for further development, or that VisualDOE should be treated the same
a</DIV>
<DIV>eQUEST - freeware and source licensed to anyone, or that neither
should</DIV>
<DIV>have been funded in the first place?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Policy can treat private funded projects differently from
Government funded</DIV>
<DIV>projects but for the policy to work it must treat different Government
funded</DIV>
<DIV>projects similarly and different private funded projects similarly.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Obviously the key here is that both VisualDOE and eQUEST would not
exist without</DIV>
<DIV>the combination of public and private investment; the partnership that
Charles' paper</DIV>
<DIV>describes. In both cases, I believe, the public funding should
"extract" some</DIV>
<DIV>public benefit - such as the basic product being freeware (or very cheap)
for</DIV>
<DIV>end users and the source being available (cheap) for developers - but
the</DIV>
<DIV>private funding should provide some advantage to the developer as a
"reward"</DIV>
<DIV>for their private investment. I think the "reward" is that the
private developers</DIV>
<DIV>get a head start, they retain copyright (so have an advantage over open
source</DIV>
<DIV>in being able to do private products based on the starting point), and they
gain</DIV>
<DIV>the internal know-how/experience from the project. Future such
public-private</DIV>
<DIV>partnerships should allow the developers to continue to retain
ownership</DIV>
<DIV>of the copyright, but require that the "starting point" which is developed
using</DIV>
<DIV>the public funds be placed out as open source under a Mozilla-like license;
the</DIV>
<DIV>developer could, however, continue on with their original source copy to
develop</DIV>
<DIV>private version licensed in any way they see fit.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The California investor owned utilities (and EPRI), when deciding to
support</DIV>
<DIV>QUEST development "extracted" the public benefit but other California
utilities,</DIV>
<DIV>when deciding to support VisualDOE, Cool Tools, and other related
projects,</DIV>
<DIV>did not "extract" much that is yet seen. This later case should
change. A similar</DIV>
<DIV>problem exists with California Public Interest Energy Research (PIER)</DIV>
<DIV>funding; they are spending millions on software tools in this field, but
have</DIV>
<DIV>not published the terms to be used in the licenses for the resultant
software.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When the support for the software comes ENTIRELY from public funds - be
it</DIV>
<DIV>DOE, CEC/PIER, etc. - the ENTIRE resulting work should be made open</DIV>
<DIV>source under the BSD-like license so that anyone can run with it in any
way.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>Such software should not use the Mozilla-like open source
license, as that format</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>was intended for use when the posted source contains substantial
private </DIV>
<DIV>investment; the Mozilla format "rewards" the copyright holder by leveling
the</DIV>
<DIV>playing field for all but him/her who decided to make their private work
open.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For EnergyPlus, Energy10, DBA, Radiance, Superlite, Window-4, BLAST,</DIV>
<DIV>CalERDA-1 through DOE-2.1C, and all the many such fully publicly funded
software,</DIV>
<DIV>the route to take is clear: BSD-like license so that anyone can run with it
in</DIV>
<DIV>any way on a level playing field. However, I also believe that we
don't need full</DIV>
<DIV>packaged commercial products from 100% government funds using 100%</DIV>
<DIV>directed procurements (sole source contracting); full products, if needed,
should</DIV>
<DIV>be bid out as open procurements with a requirement for real
cost-sharing.</DIV>
<DIV>If no bidder is willing to put up private money (not just another pot of
public funds)</DIV>
<DIV>it is doubtful the product is needed. If a full product is needed, it
is best developed</DIV>
<DIV>within the private sector by companies who will, in the end, need to market
it and</DIV>
<DIV>support it and who probably also understand the customer needs better than
the</DIV>
<DIV>US Government, National Labs, or other public funding sources.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>That said, however, I am 100% in favor of Government funding
of basic algorithm, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV>model and technology development; as I have said before, many
advancements</DIV>
<DIV>in this field would not exist without this funding. EnergyPlus the
LBNL/UI</DIV>
<DIV>commercial product - NO; EnergyPlus the BSD-like open source
simulation</DIV>
<DIV>toolkit maintained by LBNL and UI (and hopefully others in
the future) - YES.</DIV>
<DIV>Energy10 the NREL commercial product - NO; Energy10 the BSD-like open
source </DIV>
<DIV>toolkit copyrighted by winning bidder XYZ company (and the private
by-product</DIV>
<DIV>being XYZE10+ enhanced $1000 version) - YES. VisualDOE the
commercial</DIV>
<DIV>product - NO; VisualDOE the Mozilla-like open source toolkit
copyrighted</DIV>
<DIV>by winning bidder Eley Associates (and the private by-product being
Eley</DIV>
<DIV>VisualDOE+ enhanced $1000 version) - YES. eQUEST the commercial<FONT
size=3></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>product - NO; </FONT><FONT size=3>eQUEST the Mozilla-like open
source simulation and interface toolkit</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>copyrighted by winning bidder JJHirsch Associates (and the
private by-product</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>being </FONT><FONT size=3>JJH eQUESTpro enhanced $1000 version
- well, we pass on that one for</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>now, but reserve the right to do it) - YES. </DIV>
<DIV></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>DOE-2 is a good example - we used several million dollars of private money
</DIV>
<DIV>in addition to several hundred thousand of public money (DOE and CA
PGC</DIV>
<DIV>funds) to do our part of DOE-2.1D, DOE-2.1E and DOE-2.2. We
could</DIV>
<DIV>not have done this if the DOE-2 portions supported by DOE had a
royalty</DIV>
<DIV>attached or had licensing that restricted redistribution (like Mozilla or
like</DIV>
<DIV>the proposed, even more restrictive licensing for EnergyPlus) since
we</DIV>
<DIV>could not have demonstrated to our private funders how THEY would</DIV>
<DIV>benefit. DOE "extracted" from us royalty free DOE-2.2 distribution to
the</DIV>
<DIV>public; even though US Government contracting of software development
to</DIV>
<DIV>small businesses requires no such license grant for the privately
funded</DIV>
<DIV>portions, DOE felt this DOE-2.2 license grant was required to fulfill
their</DIV>
<DIV>public interest responsibility (though they have chosen, so far, not
to</DIV>
<DIV>use that license grant to distribute DOE-2.2 to the public.) This is
also</DIV>
<DIV>why I raised the question: does the user/developer community believe</DIV>
<DIV>we should move to open source licensing for DOE-2?</DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>The policy should not be to say that US public money
should be spend on engines but</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3>not interfaces; the policy should be - if the </FONT>need
exists, the priority is high enough,</DIV>
<DIV>and the private sector cannot do it well enough or fast enough alone,
plus </DIV>
<DIV>US public funds are available, then do it all ... but do it in a way that
partners with,</DIV>
<DIV>enables, and enhances the competitiveness of US companies in the world
market.<BR>---<BR>Jeff Hirsch<BR>James J. Hirsch & Associates<BR>Building
Performance Analysis Software & Consulting<BR>12185 Presilla
Road<BR>Camarillo, CA 93012-9243 USA<BR>phone: (805)
553-9000<BR>fax: (805) 532-2401<BR>email: <A
href="mailto:Jeff.Hirsch@DOE2.com">Jeff.Hirsch@DOE2.com</A><BR>web: <A
href="http://DOE2.com">http://DOE2.com</A><FONT face=Arial
size=2></DIV></FONT><PRE>
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