Hello,

i couldn't really find a good place to ask some questions about the project, hope this is a good place.
There are a few unclear things about Rosetta@home - on the website you say the project is "Rosetta@home is not for profit",
but when I checked the license, I found it confusing that "You may not use the data received or obtained by Rosetta in any way for any purpose" and "Distribution of Rosetta is prohibited". What is the reason for such restrictions in a project that's not for profit? If I can't use the data processed on my machine with my computing power, then who can?
Are the effects of my volunteering free for everyone to use, or are they someones property?
Is there a source code for computations that you do on my computer? I know BOINC is under the LGPL, but why is the rosetta@home code restricted by nonfree EULA?
If the project is really not for profit, why not release the source code for community to improve and learn from?
I also don't know how related are those things with Rosetta@home, but Foldit and Rosetta commons require having paid license.
If work I do on my computer is used to improve those commercial products, then your project is for profit.

Is the website unclear on purpose?

I can answer part of your question. Universities retain ownership of their intellectual property so that they can bring in enough revenue to continue the research they are doing. If they open-sourced everything, how would they bring in money to continue moving ahead?

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

I can answer part of your question. Universities retain ownership of their intellectual property so that they can bring in enough revenue to continue the research they are doing.

I can understand universities need money to operate, but then it should be explicitly stated that the project is not entirely "not for profit".
This case is also special because people donate their computing power to the project, hoping their contributions will help making discoveries everyone will benefit from.
After reading the license I'm not sure if this is true anymore. Maybe if people knew they're contributing to someones proprietary code, they wouldn't do it at all.
I actually saw people not wanting to use your software because of that and I'm myself considering whether it's worth it.
Since the code is proprietary, people can't be sure what exactly they're running - it could be a structure for life-saving protein, a bitcoin miner or a structure of a molecule that could be used as a chemical weapon, since I saw some parts of the project are founded by DARPA. They call your project a botnet.
How can I trust you my computing power is used for a good purpose? Is there a database, where I can check effects of those computations?
What exactly is the "data" mentioned by the license? If by data you mean everything that is send from my computer to your servers, then I can't be sure anything becomes public.

If they open-sourced everything, how would they bring in money to continue moving ahead?

There are companies and scientific projects living only from creating libre tools that can be trusted, providing support and customizing them, see examples:
https://savoirfairelinux.com/en
https://www.redhat.com/
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/
https://libre-riscv.org/
etc.
Even CERN decided to drop proprietary software, because it is more expensive to maintain and it can't be trusted (https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html.en)
https://home.cern/news/news/computing/migrating-open-source-technologies
There's enough money in the world. By making the project open, you could get more contributors, donors, companies, specialists and even governments helping like with the EU Horizon Project.
Everyone benefits as far as the goal of Rosetta@home is making science and improving the world.

And the business model where developers get paid not for the actual programming, but for restricting freedom of people who donate their computing power is kinda lame and unethical.
Make the project actually not for profit and free for everyone, or buy your own cluster to power your proprietary computations yourself.

I can answer part of your question. Universities retain ownership of their intellectual property so that they can bring in enough revenue to continue the research they are doing.

I can understand universities need money to operate, but then it should be explicitly stated that the project is not entirely "not for profit".
This case is also special because people donate their computing power to the project, hoping their contributions will help making discoveries everyone will benefit from.
After reading the license I'm not sure if this is true anymore. Maybe if people knew they're contributing to someones proprietary code, they wouldn't do it at all.
I actually saw people not wanting to use your software because of that and I'm myself considering whether it's worth it.
Since the code is proprietary, people can't be sure what exactly they're running - it could be a structure for life-saving protein, a bitcoin miner or a structure of a molecule that could be used as a chemical weapon, since I saw some parts of the project are founded by DARPA. They call your project a botnet.
How can I trust you my computing power is used for a good purpose? Is there a database, where I can check effects of those computations?
What exactly is the "data" mentioned by the license? If by data you mean everything that is send from my computer to your servers, then I can't be sure anything becomes public.

If they open-sourced everything, how would they bring in money to continue moving ahead?

There are companies and scientific projects living only from creating libre tools that can be trusted, providing support and customizing them, see examples:
https://savoirfairelinux.com/en
https://www.redhat.com/
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/
https://libre-riscv.org/
etc.
Even CERN decided to drop proprietary software, because it is more expensive to maintain and it can't be trusted (https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html.en)
https://home.cern/news/news/computing/migrating-open-source-technologies
There's enough money in the world. By making the project open, you could get more contributors, donors, companies, specialists and even governments helping like with the EU Horizon Project.
Everyone benefits as far as the goal of Rosetta@home is making science and improving the world.

And the business model where developers get paid not for the actual programming, but for restricting freedom of people who donate their computing power is kinda lame and unethical.
Make the project actually not for profit and free for everyone, or buy your own cluster to power your proprietary computations yourself.

10000% agree
I back to Boinc/FAH for corona fight support, and after few days start asking questions like You.
I'm not sure what my equipment/electricity is doing... and for who. It seems Not for Global World. Proprietary ? No, thank You. I use debian (for example) because of this...
So... just my servers finish last tasks

I'll look for some open source project to support. It seems I have 24h/7d few spare CPU. Let's help them - some Open Source

Best

I do not purport to be an expert on the legalese, but the project is not for profit. That is why it says so in the first paragraph of text on the project homepage.

I hope some of the following references will put you more at ease.

Dr. Baker has stated numerous times on the boards that the research is made public. There are links to many papers published by BakerLab that confirm that as well.

Related threads:
Concerns: Will someone (i.e. BigPharma) make money out of my CPU time?
Unanswered questions about rosetta@home
Solid answer needed, for who do we do this?

---

Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

I do not purport to be an expert on the legalese, but the project is not for profit. That is why it says so in the first paragraph of text on the project homepage.

I hope some of the following references will put you more at ease.

Dr. Baker has stated numerous times on the boards that the research is made public. There are links to many papers published by BakerLab that confirm that as well.

Related threads:
Concerns: Will someone (i.e. BigPharma) make money out of my CPU time?
Unanswered questions about rosetta@home
Solid answer needed, for who do we do this?

Just make software Open Source. It's simple. Many company do it... even Microsoft, Oracle itd...
U like people help, they (for example me) like to help, if I have clear situation

p.s.
Look at it.. in pandemia moment, You have huge response from community. Why ? Because people like to do smth together for all people on the world. We trust You know what to do the best with ours CPU. We (I) trust. But it should be 2 way. And You should do it for all people... not only for Yours project. Strong together (yeee, I know, sound idealistically....)
It's my 5c

Best