Steve Hitchcock (unwittingly) raises a logical point about "indexicals," whose meaning and truth depends on when and where they are uttered:
If I say: "All humans are free," then for that (present-tense) proposition -- i.e., not "some" but "all," and not "were free," not "will be free", not "might be free" not "could be free," but "are free" -- to be true rather than false, now, it has to be the case, *now*, that all humans are free. A single exception, anywhere, now, makes the proposition false, everywhere, now. If humans have been in chains till yesterday, then "All humans are free" only becomes true on the day they are all free, everywhere. A single unfree human, anywhere, falsifies it. And in particular, the proposition "this human is free" is false of this human, today, here, if he is not free today (but only tomorrow, maybe). The objective of the free-access movement is to make the following proposition true: "All articles (in the 20K peer-reviewed journals) are free." That proposition is false in general as long as any article is not free. And it is false in particular of any article that is not free (including articles that are not "yet" free). Now let us examine Steve Hitchcock's observation about Michael Held's definition of "free access": On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Steve Hitchcock wrote: > There is another view of 'free', not untypical of publishers, a version of > which was recently expressed by Michael J Held of Rockefeller University > Press http://www.jcb.org/cgi/content/full/jcb.200307018v1 > According to Held, while free access to information is 'powerful and > alluring', the open access publishing model is 'unproven' and possibly > 'unsustainable'. Here free refers to back content (PubMed Central and > Highwire models) and regional access (defined by the World Health > Organization as developing nations). > > [H]ow can [free access] be differentiated from Held's version of ["free"] > With [Peter Suber's] addition of the words 'immediate (upon initial > publication)' and 'universal' to that of 'free' in the conditions of > open access.... > > Some wish to go further, but surely these are the only terms that are > necessary in a definition of open access. Alone, free is insufficient. In view of the indexical nature of the present-tense predicate "is free," I think neither the "now" nor the "everywhere" are needed. "Free" is sufficient, and sufficient to disqualify Michael Held's predicate as simply self-contradictory, on the time-scale. (However, Peter's reminders of the here and now are never a bad idea.) Harnad, Stevan (2001) AAAS's Response: Too Little, Too Late http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/eletters/291/5512/2318b But please, amidst all this semiological fussing, let us not forget that our task is not definition optimization but access liberation, now. And let us not forgot that in the long run we are (sic) all dead. Free access now! Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org