Stevan Harnad wrote: > So here is my list, again: > > (1) UBIQUITOUS DIRECT ONLINE ACCESS MAKES DERIVATIVE ACCESS SUPERFLUOUS: > Once the full-text is immediately, permanently, and ubiquitously > (i.e., webwide) accessible toll-free, so any user anywhere, any time, > can read the full-text on-screen, download it, store it, print it off, > search/grep it, computationally process it, etc. -- which any user can > do if the author self-archives it -- the further rights and uses that > distinguish "free" from "open" become either moot or supererogatory:
Perhaps I'm missing some other definition here, but how do we determine if an article is "permanently" accessible? If an article is published in, say, D-Lib Magazine, does that mean it is permanently accessible? How does this happen? How can we know that what is there today will be there twenty or fifty years from now? The entire web is younger than that. I know but one way to guarantee permanent access, and that is to allow free copying and republishing. How can this derivative kind of access suddenly become superfluous? What other ways are there? Of course I think that the people behind D-Lib Magazine are very careful with their backups and long-term commitment, but the same might not be the case with every self-archiving institution out there. Nations can fall and institutions can be forced to change their policies. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se/
