Reply To: March 5-9 2007: 7th Symposium on Current Trends in International Fusion Research in DC

[Tulse]

Brian H wrote:
Considering there are many thousands of compounds tested and rejected for each that shows promise, and that full validation trials etc. set back the company by hundreds of millions (much of that due to heavy bureaucracy), there’s some reason for being protective.

Of course there is, but that is the antithesis of open research — in other words, you seem to be agreeing that, in this case, corporations stifle free exchange of research (for perfectly understandable competitive reasons). My point was simply that you can’t expect private companies concerned with profits to be open with research that has competitive implications.

As for free flow of information, compare the frustration, and even lawsuits demanding info, over at talk-Polywell (government funded) vs. the openness of LPP and FFS (privately funded).

I think the critical difference is that the Polywell research is funded by the military. I certainly would not expect that all military research would be presented openly.

And, to be honest, while I am personally delighted that LPP has made so much information freely available, if it were a regular publicly-held company and I were a stockholder, I’d be pretty appalled at the amount of disclosure and the possible competitive advantage that such might give to other, better funded competitors.