Re: Stepping down as Moderator of American Scientist Open Access Forum

[Bernard Lang]

Dear Stevan

Do you mean I may be allowed to post in the future, or do you intend
to leave specific instructions regarding me ?:-)

Well,  thanks a lot for the work done.

Amicalement

Bernard

PS You may choose not to post this one either :-)

* Stevan Harnad , le 27-11-11, a écrit:
> Dear All,
> 
> 
> Of the seven responses received to date, all seven are in favor of
> continuing the Forum. Richard Poynder and Thomas Krichel have each offered
> to moderate. Three of those who voted to continue also endorsed Richard
> Poynder (Alma Swan spontaneously, Helene Bosc and Barbara Kirsop when I had
> followed up their responses to inform them that Richard Poynder and Thomas
> Krichel had offered to moderate).
> 
> 
> Note that a straw poll of a list of 1000+ subscribers, most of whom never
> post, is not the same thing as an election. I will wait a little longer for
> responses, and post another compendium in a few days. If those who have
> been active contributors to the Forum across the years feel it should
> continue, it will continue.
> 
> 
> Stevan
> 
> 
> THOMAS KRICHEL: I think it should continue, as it appears to be the largest
> and most active forum.  I volunteer to do it.
> 
> 
> RICHARD POYNDER: Well I certainly vote for it to continue. I would even put
> my name down for the moderator's hat if it was felt appropriate for a
> journalist to run such a forum, and people believed I could do the job
> adequately
> 
> 
> ALMA SWAN: I am writing to nominate Richard Poynder as the new moderator
> for the AmSci Forum. I think he brings the right qualities - amongst them
> honesty, fairness, intellectual curiousness and efficiency - and is hugely
> respected as an independent, critical thinker on the issues that AmSci
> covers. I want the Forum to continue because it is a real discussion list
> rather than a bulletin board…
> 
> 
> HELENE BOSC: In memory of the remarkable work done by Stevan Harnad for
> Open Access through this list, during 14 years, I wish it continues...
> Richard Poynder would be a perfect moderator!
> 
> 
> BARBARA KIRSOP: If Stevan feels he can better operate in support of OA not
> as the moderator, then it would be great indeed if Richard Poynder would
> adopt the mantle. I think AMSCI should continue. I am somewhat in favour of
> a name change to highlight OA rather than the US - a name change could be a
> mini-re-launch perhaps and bring in new contributors - a fitting tribute to
> Stevan's past efforts.
> 
> 
> ARTHUR SALE: May I wish you the best as non-moderator. It is the right
> decision for you, I think. This may be a shock to you that I think that it
> is a plus, but I think we need to get new ideas into the OA transition, and
> you have done your bit and a lot more… and perhaps I can even convince you
> eventually that the Titanium Road is the way to go now! You will be
> bombarded with messages begging you to reconsider, but I do think it is the
> right decision. Then you can enjoy being yourself without constraint. No
> one person can bear the weight of the world, not even Atlas.
> 
> 
> IRYNA KUCHMA:The AmSci Open Access Forum is an active discussion forum
> (SOAF and BOAI are more like the announcement lists) and my answer is (1)
> definitely to continue. It's sad that you've decided to step down as a
> moderator. I wish I could help you with moderating it, but I am travelling
> a lot and sometimes not able to moderate the BOAI on time…. Hope you will
> find the ways to continue.

-- 
 Après la bulle Internet, la bulle financière ...
   Et bientôt la bulle des brevets
  http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/system/files/noteveille81.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kahin/the-patent-bubble_b_129232.html
   la gestion des catastrophes comme principe de gouvernement

  bernard.l...@datcha.net   ,_  /\o\o/gsm  +33 6 6206 1693
  http://www.datcha.net/   ^  tel  +33 1 3056 1693
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX

Re: The affordability problem vs. the accessibility problem

[Bernard Lang]

Hi,

Since it seems to be in topic, I will be repeating here a question I
asked on BOAI-forum, without success.

I attended recently a formal meeting about publishing contracts in
general, and what happens afterwards regarding digital versions of the
work. It becomes quickly quite technical (in the legal sense) and I
found myself unable to understand in a precise way what are the
implications of OA mandates, or OA contracts.


Everything is very simple when you think only in terms of beaing able
to access a copy of the work and read it. Either you can or you can't.
It is either self archived or it is the publisher's copy.

But this is our simple world of today that mimics in digital form what
we are used to doing in printed form.

The future will not be so simple and Elsevier, for example, is
developing the science direct environment that will assist accessing
papers, managing them, correlating them and so on.  Tools will develop
to access and use scientific litterature.

But a contract that will allows you to read an article may wall
prohibit mechanical uses of some forms.

So the issue is not just the mean the access to works by individual
scientists, but what can be done with the works in a very general
sense, and by whom, through what tools.  It may be that some tools
might not really work well if the accessible papers are located over
the Internet, rather than being accessible in a few publishing
location. This may cause other forms of divide in the digital world
[scorie: immunnité.]

There is a lot more at stakes than just casual access, and the devil
is in the details of the contracts, whether green, gold, or any other
color. I am especially afraid of infra-red.

Indeed the page http://www.soros.org/openaccess/help lists many issues
in its "How accessible?" section, issues that may be compounded by the
fact that access may be done via commercial devices.

So my question is whether there is in-depth analysis of open-access
contracts signed by authors, and their implications for the future,
given that many such contracts will last for 70 years after the
author's death, that is essentially for ever.

A related question is whether there is somewhere a repository of
contracts used by the 23000 academic publications (from memory, I read
that figure in a report), whether run privately, by academia or by
learned organizations.

Although books are not generally concerned by OA, it might be
interesting to know the general access constraints for their digital
form.  Is it really reasonnable to give exclusivity for more than 20
or 30 years (which seems to me already extremely long) ?  I am not
talking about the duration of copyright, but only about the
publisher's digital exclusivity on a given edition of the book.
I am fully aware that this is a somewhat different issue.

Cordialement

Bernard Lang


- End forwarded message -


* Stevan Harnad , le 04-11-11, a écrit:
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Dana Roth wrote:
> 
> >  I think there is a tendency to overly generalize the access problem which,
> > in my mind, is primarily a problem with the biomedical literature.
> >
> > Lack of access, by members of the general public who need to go from
> > PubMed to the full text, is obviously very frustrating.
> >
> > My sense, however,  is that few serious researchers or students are truly
> > having a problem with access to the scientific literature.
> >
> > Granted there are problems for non-subscribers desirous of immediate ...
> > seamless ... access.
> >
> > But with options such as institutional document delivery, visiting or
> > contacting a friend at a subscribing library, direct purchase of
> > individual articles, author websites, institutional repositories, etc.
> > ... I doubt that very many researchers are having a serious problem with
> > access.
> >
> 
> I think, Dana, that you may be a little out of touch with research in the
> online age (in all disciplines) : If an article's free online, you can find
> it, usually instantly. If it's not (and your institution doesn't
> subscribe), the idea that instead of clicking and being able to browse or
> read it immediately you must instead wait for interlibrary loan, or try to
> contact a friend, or pay-to-view is really very far from the reality of the
> needs and expectations of researchers today. It comes from another era.
> 
> The result is that many don't even consult literature they cannot access
> free online -- and that means about 85% of the literature is being
> neglected.
> 
> Hard to see that as not being a problem -- but it certainly explains why
> your idea of open access apparently concerns affordability and not access.
> 
> 
> >
> > ** There is, however, another angle to this ... and that is the need for

Re: The First and Foremost PostGutenberg Distinction

[Bernard Lang]

* Hélène.Bosc , le 16-11-10, a écrit:
> Bernard,
> Your worry about orphan works is not mine, because I think it
> doesn't prevent to reach OA.

Bonjour Hélène,

well ... you are unfortunately wrong

with the law as it was stated (it did not fare too well so far, but
the reason is not clear) works could be taken out of OA
if the rightsholder is not reachable.

did you read our Press release:
http://aful.org/sections/communiques/senat-organise-viol-droits-auteur


> But in Germany, some researchers are concerned by it.  May I suggest
> you to join the European Network for Copyright in support of
> Education and Science (ENCES) which is working on it.
> http://www.ences.eu/
> Contact : http://www.ences.eu/contact/
> Please see this recent report 
> http://iuwis.de/blog/hearing-orphan-works-german-federal-ministry-justice-report

thanks for the pointers


The main problem is that everyone is now working on the orphan work
concept without questionning it ...  and it is nonsense.

amitiés 
Bernard


> Amitiés.
> Hélène Bosc
> 
> 
> - Original Message - From: "Bernard Lang"
> 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 3:52 PM
> Subject: Re: The First and Foremost PostGutenberg Distinction
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you Jean-Claude
> 
> But when you speak of the green and gold road, and their form of publishing,
> does it imply that the accessible works come with these rights granted ...
> 
> or is it only seen as a way to get there.
> 
> I means that if those rights are given, does it matter much how the
> work is initially made available.
> 
> With apologies if my questions are silly.  I am missing a link somewhere.
> 
> I do need to clarify these issues, as France seems intent (I do hope
> they fail miserably) to have an orphan law, that would give control
> over works to collective societies, to manage and make money from
> (theoretically in the author's name). One of the explicit purposes is
> to kill free works as much as possible (unfair competition).
> 
> This is already pretty bad.
> 
> Next news is that the definition of orphan works ignores the existence
> of a licence or anything.  Only reaching the author matters.
> 
> In other words, the open access publications of an academic who has
> retired without leaving an address might cease to be open access.
> They did not say either that the law is only applicable to French
> works.
> 
> So far it was only a law for still images, but they were very clear
> that the intents is to expend it to all things printable.
> 
> Why still images .. because that gives them an excuse to get started,
> as photos are often used illegally by pretending the author cannot be
> found.  But there are better way of solving that problem.
> 
> As I want at least to have open access works excluded, I need a
> definition, that will be general enough without encompassing
> everything on the net.
> 
> I have various references, but all in French.
> 
> Bernard
> 
> 
> PS The promoter of that law explained to me that violating the moral
> rights of an author (by preventing use of his works without a mandate
> from the author) is OK if done with a state mandate, i.e., with legal
> permission.
> 
> 
> 
> * Jean-Claude Guédon , le
> 16-11-10, a écrit:
> >Bernard,
> >
> >I will simply quote the Bethesda statement on OA:
> >
> >
> > 1. Definition of Open Access Publication
> >
> >
> >An Open Access Publication[1] is one that meets the following two
> >conditions:
> >
> >
> > 1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a
> >free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and
> >a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the
> >work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in
> >any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to
> >proper attribution of authorship[2], as well as the right to
> >make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
> >
> > 2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials,
> >including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a
> >suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately
> >upon initial publication in at least one online repository that
> >is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society,
> >government agency, or other well-established organization that
> >seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution,
> >interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical
> >sciences, PubMed 

Re: The First and Foremost PostGutenberg Distinction

[Bernard Lang]

* Jean-Claude Guédon , le 16-11-10, a écrit:
> Bernard,
> 
> The Green Road is not generally conceived of as "publishing" unless you
> take the work "publishing" in a very general sense, such as "making
> public". Stevan Harnad, in fact, has always carefully separated the
> Green Road (self-archiving - not self-publishing) from both vanity
> presses and publishing reforms. I agree with him on these two points,
> even though I also believe that repositories could make moves that would
> bring them much closer to a publisher-function (to transpose the
> author-function of Michel Foucault).  But I do not want to re-open this
> can of worms here.
> 
> When most of us speak about the Green or Gold Road to Open Access, we
> generally mean free access and free reuse within some well-defined
> limits (e.g. responsible use) that the Bethesda Declaration (among
> others) tried to spell out). In other words, OA is more than simply an
> ability to read at no costs. OA is an ability to reuse, incorporate,
> etc... Again, think about the GPL in free software and the meaning of
> "free" (as in "free speech") in this context. The power of remixing is
> at the heart of the free software movement, and it is also at the heart
> of a healthy scientific effort. It extends to the notuion of a vigorous
> cultural evolution.

Thank you for the clarification

We are trying to define a notion of open work, that is somewhat fuzzy,
a bit in the spirit of what you say. 

> 
> The OA movement does not deal with orphan works in any central way. It
> deals with scholarly and scientific works where the issue of orphan
> works does not appear to be central (at least I have never seen it
> mentioned in this context).

I realized that ...  I was only saying that there are threats to open
access that you may not be aware of.  This is one of them.


> Your collecting societies in France obviously want to control both
> access and re-use of orphan works. However, as Larry Lessig has pointed
> out, this is not necessarily all bad provided that:
> 
> 1. This helps clearly identify orphan works (and as a consequence, it
> also helps define the public domain);

mumble ...

> 2. This removes the problem of identifying rights owners;

no  ... they want the owners to be searched first

> 3. The fees collected are modest or even minimal.

that is precisely what they want to avoid.  They are after what they
call "the acceptance of payment" ("le consentement à payer") ... they
dont want people to be used to low prices.

> 
> My impression is that you should fight this battle with the use of
> Creative Common licenses, rather than with the OA example. This would
> provide more wiggle room to negotiate an acceptable solution for orphan
> works. And you might remind your negotiating partners that if France
> puts too many restrictions (economic or legal) on orphan works, it will
> simply make the projection of French culture worldwide that much more
> difficult. In other words, French authorities will shoot themselves in
> the foot. I know they are quite good at doing this regularly, to the
> point that i suspect some form of masochism is at work here, but
> nonetheless... Using a suitable CC license on orphan works could lead to
> free re-use of these works so long as it is not commercial. Fees could
> be collected for commercial re-use

does not work legally.  But I agree regarding their feets.
They are like their thinking : full of holes.

I am trying something else ... similar result.
  http://www.datcha.net/ecrits/liste/orphan-gbs.pdf

But one thing I am now sure of : orphan works are the wrong concept,
a red herring.

We need registration.  And I am sure it can be free.

Bernard


> 
> Jean-Claude
> 
> Le mardi 16 novembre 2010 à 15:52 +0100, Bernard Lang a écrit :
> 
> > 
> > Thank you Jean-Claude
> > 
> > But when you speak of the green and gold road, and their form of publishing,
> > does it imply that the accessible works come with these rights granted ...
> > 
> > or is it only seen as a way to get there.
> > 
> > I means that if those rights are given, does it matter much how the
> > work is initially made available.
> > 
> > With apologies if my questions are silly.  I am missing a link somewhere.
> > 
> > I do need to clarify these issues, as France seems intent (I do hope
> > they fail miserably) to have an orphan law, that would give control
> > over works to collective societies, to manage and make money from
> > (theoretically in the author's name). One of the explicit purposes is
> > to kill free works as much as possible (unfair competition).
> > 
> > This is already pretty bad.

Re: The First and Foremost PostGutenberg Distinction

[Bernard Lang]

Thank you Jean-Claude

But when you speak of the green and gold road, and their form of publishing,
does it imply that the accessible works come with these rights granted ...

or is it only seen as a way to get there.

I means that if those rights are given, does it matter much how the
work is initially made available.

With apologies if my questions are silly.  I am missing a link somewhere.

I do need to clarify these issues, as France seems intent (I do hope
they fail miserably) to have an orphan law, that would give control
over works to collective societies, to manage and make money from
(theoretically in the author's name). One of the explicit purposes is
to kill free works as much as possible (unfair competition).

This is already pretty bad.

Next news is that the definition of orphan works ignores the existence
of a licence or anything.  Only reaching the author matters.

In other words, the open access publications of an academic who has
retired without leaving an address might cease to be open access.
They did not say either that the law is only applicable to French
works.

So far it was only a law for still images, but they were very clear
that the intents is to expend it to all things printable.

Why still images .. because that gives them an excuse to get started,
as photos are often used illegally by pretending the author cannot be
found.  But there are better way of solving that problem.

As I want at least to have open access works excluded, I need a
definition, that will be general enough without encompassing
everything on the net.

I have various references, but all in French.

Bernard


PS The promoter of that law explained to me that violating the moral
rights of an author (by preventing use of his works without a mandate
from the author) is OK if done with a state mandate, i.e., with legal
permission.



* Jean-Claude Guédon , le 16-11-10, a écrit:
> Bernard,
> 
> I will simply quote the Bethesda statement on OA:
> 
> 
>  1. Definition of Open Access Publication
> 
> 
> An Open Access Publication[1] is one that meets the following two
> conditions:
> 
> 
>  1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a
> free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and
> a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the
> work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in
> any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to
> proper attribution of authorship[2], as well as the right to
> make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use. 
> 
>  2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials,
> including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a
> suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately
> upon initial publication in at least one online repository that
> is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society,
> government agency, or other well-established organization that
> seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution,
> interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical
> sciences, PubMed Central is such a repository).
> 
> 
> I hope this helps you sort out these ideas.
> 
> OA is more than simple and cost-less access; it implies the same kinds
> of freedoms that a GPL ensures for software.
> 
> Much of OA thinking was inspired by the free software movement.
> 
> Jean-Claude Guédon
> 
> Le mardi 16 novembre 2010 à 13:21 +0100, Bernard Lang a écrit :
> 
> > 
> > Is there a distinction between papers that are just openly accessible,
> > and papers that can be freely reproduced on other sites, or other
> > media in your classifications.
> > 
> > I am trying o identifi the concept of an open work.  If it is simply
> > something that I can access, that qualifies the whole of the Internet.
> > 
> > But can I make copies, preserve it or present it in some other form.
> > Who has enough rights so that the conditions of work availability can
> > evolve with the state of the art in documents access, presentation,
> > organization.
> > 
> > What we do now in not the end of progress in publication. My concern
> > is the future.
> > 
> > Why do I worry : because I spend much time working on orphan works
> > issues.  I am trying to determine when the rightsholder is needed to
> > ensure adequate life and survival of a work.  Being accessible for
> > reading is just not enough.
> > 
> > Bernard
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > * Jean-Claude Guédon , le 14-11-10, a 
> > écrit:
> > > Indeed, Larry! 
> > > 
> > > And Stevan Harnad is quite 

Re: The First and Foremost PostGutenberg Distinction

[Bernard Lang]

Is there a distinction between papers that are just openly accessible,
and papers that can be freely reproduced on other sites, or other
media in your classifications.

I am trying o identifi the concept of an open work.  If it is simply
something that I can access, that qualifies the whole of the Internet.

But can I make copies, preserve it or present it in some other form.
Who has enough rights so that the conditions of work availability can
evolve with the state of the art in documents access, presentation,
organization.

What we do now in not the end of progress in publication. My concern
is the future.

Why do I worry : because I spend much time working on orphan works
issues.  I am trying to determine when the rightsholder is needed to
ensure adequate life and survival of a work.  Being accessible for
reading is just not enough.

Bernard



* Jean-Claude Guédon , le 14-11-10, a écrit:
> Indeed, Larry! 
> 
> And Stevan Harnad is quite right is refusing to equate Open Access with
> the Gold Road.
> 
> In fact, Open Access is made up of two approaches: OA publishing or
> "Gold Road" and self-archiving or "Green Road". And both roads are
> valuable, arguably equally (although differently) valuable. 
> 
> As for Wallace-Evans, one only has to see how he characterized Robert K.
> Merton ("most pusillanimous"... ???) to realize that the barbarians are
> at the gates. It is a pity to see a priodical like Nation fall this low.
> I used to like reading Nation when I was a student.
> 
> Jean-Claude Guédon
> 
> 
> Le dimanche 14 novembre 2010 à 10:21 -0500, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
> > One can sympathize with Larry Lessig's frustration in "An Obvious
> > Distinction":
> > 
> > LL:
> > "In 2010, [for David Wallace-Evans] to suggest [in a
> > 6000-word review in The Nation] that [the Creative
> > Commons movement] 'exhort[s]… piracy and the
> > plundering of culture'... betrays not just sloppy
> > thinking [but] extraordinary ignorance… [and lack of]
> > respect for what has been written… This terrain has
> > been plowed a hundred times in the past decade…
> > Reading is the first step to… respect for what has
> > been written... Reading is what Wallace-Wells has not
> > done well."
> > 
> > Larry tries to correct Wallace-Evans's 6000 sloppy words with 878
> > carefully chosen ones of his own. 
> > 
> > 
> > Let me try to atone for my own frequent long-windedness by trying to
> > put it even more succinctly (20 words):
> > 
> > Creative Commons' goal 
> > is to protect 
> > creators' give-away rights -- 
> > not consumers' 
> > (or 2nd-party copyright-holders') 
> > rip-off rights.
> > 
> > (Reader's of the American Scientist Open Access Forum may have a sense
> > of déjà lu about this since at least as far back as December
> > 2000: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1048.html )
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > __
> > Harnad, Stevan (2000/2001/2003/2004) For Whom the Gate
> > Tolls? Published as: (2003) Open Access to Peer-Reviewed
> > Research Through Author/Institution Self-Archiving: Maximizing
> > Research Impact by Maximizing Online Access. In: Law, Derek &
> > Judith Andrews, Eds. Digital Libraries: Policy Planning and
> > Practice. Ashgate Publishing 2003. [Shorter version: Harnad S.
> > (2003) Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 49: 337-342.] and in:
> > (2004) Historical Social Research (HSR) 29:1. [French version:
> > Harnad, S. (2003) Cielographie et cielolexie: Anomalie
> > post-gutenbergienne et comment la resoudre. In: Origgi, G. &
> > Arikha, N. (eds) Le texte a l'heure de l'Internet.
> > Bibliotheque Centre Pompidou: 77-103.
> > __
> > 
> > The persistent "piracy" canard calls to mind others like it, foremost
> > among them being: 
> > "OA ≡ Gold OA (publishing)"...
> > 
> > 
> > __
> > Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S.,
> > Gingras, Y, Oppenheim, C., Stamerjohanns, H., & Hilf, E.
> > (2004) The green and the gold roads to Open Access. Nature Web
> > Focus
> > __
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Jean-Claude Guédon
> Professeur titulaire
> Littérature comparée
> Université de Montréal

-- 
 Après la bulle Internet, la bulle financière ...
   Et bientôt la bulle des brevets
 http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/revue/IMG/pdf/article_HS7RL2.pdf
http://www.h

can you present google scholar in French

[Bernard Lang]

Bonjour,   (intentionally in French)

An economist collegue, Joëlle Farchy, is co-editor of a special issue
of a French sociology journal (publishing in French only). The topic
of this issue is free scientific publication (I am not sure whether
she means something other than open access).

She is interested in finding a contributor for a fairly short piece
analyzing goggle scolar, its uses or misuses, or contrasting it with
other way of finding scholarly articles.  Also, what (algorithmic)
techniques do they use to query the web and how does it differ from or
improve (?)  upon a simple use of the general purpose search engine
(like the standard Goggle).

It should be about 10 to 20 000 characters (spaces included) and
written in French.

I thought someone in these forum might be interested in contributing,
or might know someone who is and can do it.

She can be contacted at
   Joelle FARCHY 

It seems to me that the issue she is preparing may contribute to make
open access better known.  She has already significantly contributed
to a better understanding of open access in France, though not through
our usual channels.

Do not write back to me : I will be off-line for some time.

Thank you for helping.

Cordialement

Bernard Lang

--
  Après la bulle Internet, la bulle financière ...
   Et bientôt la bulle des brevets
   http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/revue/IMG/pdf/article_HS7RL2.pdf
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kahin/the-patent-bubble_b_129232.html
la gestion des catastrophes comme principe de gouvernement

bernard.l...@inria.fr  ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/   ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
   INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

Do we have a Spanish ennemy ?

[Bernard Lang]

Bonjour,

MEP Manuel MEDINA ORTEGA (Spain) is apparently the main author of a
report for the European Parliament.

An unofficial version (including amendments adopted in Committee) is
available at :
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/MedinaOrtega_INI-report-Copyright_JURI-consolidated

It starts by (1) recalling « that the adoption of Directive 2001/29/EC
was one of the priority objectives laid down by the Lisbon European
Council of 23 and 24 March 2000 in the context of the process leading
to a competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economy; »

then further down it (24) « Wishes the scientific community and
researchers to enter into voluntary licence-issuing schemes with
publishers in order to improve access to works for purposes of
teaching and research; however, takes particular note of the value of
learned journals, which play a key role in the peer review process of
validating the results of academic research, and the financial
viability of which is dependent on paid subscriptions; »

I must say I have a hard time interpreting this sentence.  As far as I
know, the scientific community is doing its best to improve access.
The problems lie with the publishers and journals.

But given the ideological leanings of this lawyer, and the rest of the
document, I fear the worst.

This is relevent to this community.
I will not comment the rest ... just so that I have a calm evening.

I hope to have soon a pointer to an official version.


Bernard Lang


PS This reminds me of the French Rapport Patino to the ministry of
culture, about digital books, which ignores open access altogether, as
well as a few other things that Patino does not like.  Mr Patino
states that authors should give more rights to the publishers who
"should keep a central role in the determination of prices."
http://lesrapports.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/BRP/084000381/.pdf

--
  Après la bulle Internet, la bulle financière ...
   Et bientôt la bulle des brevets
   http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/revue/IMG/pdf/article_HS7RL2.pdf
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-kahin/the-patent-bubble_b_129232.html
la gestion des catastrophes comme principe de gouvernement

bernard.l...@inria.fr  ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/   ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
   INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

orphan works

[Bernard Lang]

Hi,

I do not know whether the mail I am replying to went to the whole list,
but it is written like it was intended to.

* Stevan Harnad  note le 03-10-08 :
> I have several times returned the postings of Bernard Lang to him as
> not relevant to the American Scientist Open Access Forum, because they
> are not about Open Access but about software patents.

It is true that I spent much time on patent issue ... and I will not
dispute Stevan assertion because I am far too lazy to go back to my
old mails.  I would normally mix issues because I think there is an
objective connection, but that is sometime a subjective
perception. :-)

Whatever ... I also work on copyright issues, and generally on free
access, but not restricted to academic litterature.  This is
off-topic, I know.

More on topic, I was nominated to seat at CSPLA, a council that is
supposed to analyse copyright issues for the French ministry of
culture.  I guess the reason was mainly my implication with the free
software mouvement, but I happen also to be (I believe) the only
scientist nominated to represent the interests of some community (free
software), and that leaves me free to represent also the academic
community, since AFAIK it is not officially represented (which says a
lot).  Of course producers and publishers are very strongly
represented.  Authors are mostly represented by Collective Copyright
Management organization, mostly  which are generally a very
conservative bunch, not really keen on open access. There was actually
an explicit attack by publishers against open access at the first
plenary meeting I attended, a year ago.

I am saying all this because, possibly, I might do more for open
access in France (see my coordinates in signature), though I usually
belong to a tiny - thus powerless - minority.  Our closest friends,
there, are probably the representatives of academic libraries, while
the representative of the national library (BNF) works with (for ?)
the publishers, for what I can observe.

Last year, we had a commission studying possible changes in the
legislation on orphan works.  The main reason is that libraries cannot
give access to digitalized version of many works without permission
from rightholders, who are too often impossible to find.
http://www.cspla.culture.gouv.fr/CONTENU/rapoeuvor08.pdf

As I said in previous mail :
> > ... many scientific publications have a
> > potential to become orphan works : since the author does not get
> > royalties, he has no incentive to leave personal information to be
> > tracked after he ceases to be an active professional.

Some of the legislative recommendations in Europe may reveal dangerous
with repect to open access.  In a nutshell, orphan works would be
managed by collective management organizations mostly controled by
publishers.  And the intention is certainly not to allow open access
...  the idea is actually to get royalties that authors will most
likely never see - and that is quite explicit.

So one can really worry that scientific publications that have become
orphan might actually be barred from open access. Assuming that such a
legislation is voted, one would certainly want some form of exception
for scientific publications.

Now, my own work on this issue has been to legally demonstrate that
such a legislation (unlike the proposed US legislation) would be in
contradiction with international treaties (specifically with the
3-step test, required in all major copyright treaties).  But the law
has always been very flexible when money and corporations are
involved.

I realize that this is not central to what is to be done now for open
access.  But does it have to be neglected ?  My experience is that
protecting freedom of any kind (and open access is a form of freedom)
can seldom be fully isolated from context.  Social structure is very
interconected and you never know when one issue will suddenly impinge
on another.

Another point, again very local to France, is that there is currently
more interest in digitalized publishing.  One report was produced for
the ministry of culture in July, by someone called Patino.
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/conferen/albanel/rapportpatino.pdf
The Patino commission has been clearly working with and for
publishers, and for example they pretend that nothing changes with
digitalization. Open access is simply ignored, as well as many other
facts or issues.  Here again, the scientific community should react.
I did my very small bit by writing a short comment on the report
in magazine of a researcher union :
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/ecrits/liste/VRS374.LANG-Patino.pdf
 (for the full magazine : http://www.sncs.fr/IMG/pdf/VRS374.pdf )

These are all small bits, individually harmless. Coalescence is the
danger.


Bernard Lang



* Stevan Harnad  note le 03-10-08 :
> On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 6:28 AM, Bernard Lang  wrote:
>
> > I did not follow this specific case, but I have personall

Re: Nihil obstat + orphan works

[Bernard Lang]

Hi,


2 topics :



> (1) For some odd reason, Jean-Claude is accusing me of censorship: I

I did not follow this specific case, but I have personally been
censored rather often (compared to the number of times I tried to
contribute).

I do not have a reputation of being off topic in the other forums
where I usually speak.

for what this is worth :

Of course, no one here can assess whether what I am saying is right,
since my words did not get through.

--

BTW, since I am talking.  Is there an interest in orphan works on this
list.  I am asking because many scientific publications have a
potential to become orphan works : since the author does not get
royalties, he has no incentive to leave personal information to be
tracked after he ceases to be an active professional.

I am asking because, though the proposed legislation on orphan works
seems rather well designed in the USA, there are very different
proposals in Europe that may reveal dangerous.  In a nutshell, orphan
works would be managed by collective management organizations mostly
controled by publishers. Where that would lead us is anyone's guess.

Bernard Lang


* Stevan Harnad  note le 02-10-08 :
> Summary:
>
> (1) For some odd reason, Jean-Claude is accusing me of censorship: I
> wonder why? since every single one of his postings to the AmSci Forum
> has appeared, in full, as he can confirm by consulting the archive:
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
>
> (2) Everyone, including the moderator, has the right to post replies
> to the AmSci Forum, just as Jean-Claude does. The moderator's replies
> have no special status, one way or the other, other than what status
> they may earn through their substance.
>
> (3) My own frequent strategy in these exchanges with Jean-Claude  (as
> anyone who looks over those sad sections of the AmSci Archive can
> confirm) has been to cease replying once Jean-Claude lapses into
> flaming, as he alas almost invariably does, at least in his exchanges
> with me. (I was on the verge of prepending that caveat to my own first
> reply in this latest series, to the effect that I would reply for the
> moment, but if and when Jean-Claude started flaming again, the floor
> was his alone. Well, I hereby postpend that now. The Forum is all
> yours, Jean-Claude.)
>
> Imprimi potest!
>
> Stephanus Primus
>
> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon
>  wrote:
> > I find this form of behaviour unacceptable. It borders on unacknowledged
> > censorship.
> >
> > Let me give a quick example: I never conflated citability and branding, but
> > Stevan does in his "summary". So beware of Stevan's "summaries". They read
> > more like polemical devices or editorials.
> >
> > It also and clearly illustrates how he often misreads what people write.
> >
> > I call on Stevan simply to post the whole message I sent last night. It is
> > not very long and it points out how Stevan does not dialogue well.
> >
> > It is not for him, as moderator, to judge what is tedious or not,
> > monumentally trivial or not. A moderator should address the issue of
> > relevance, not tediousness. He or she should also carefully distinguish
> > between his (her) role as moderator and as party in a discussion.
> >
> > Perhaps Stevan should give up the moderation of this list and thus enjoy
> > greater polemical freedom.
> >
> > Jean-Claude Guédon
> >
> > Le mercredi 01 octobre 2008 à 09:19 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
> >
> > I think AmSci Forum readers may be finding this exchange rather
> > tedious. I will summarize, and then let Jean-Claude have the last word.
> >
> > (1) Jean-Claude thinks there is a problem for specifying the locus of
> > quoted passages when citing a work if the pagination of the OA
> > postprint one has accessed differs from the pagination of the
> > publisher's PDF.
> >
> > (2) He does not like the solution of citing the published work, as
> > usual, linking the postprint's URL, for quote-checking, and specifying
> > the locus of the quote by paragraph number instead of page number.
> >
> > (3) He prefers to upgrade the status of the postprint in some way, so
> > as to "brand" it as "citable," and then citing the postprint instead
> > of citing the published work.
> >
> > Judicat Emptor. This strikes me as a monumentally trivial non-problem
> > and an unnecessary and incoherent proposed solution.
> >
> > Stevan Harnad
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 10:02 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon
> >  wrote:
> >> Sigh... I will respond below
> &

Fwd: Article sur la diffusion des droits africains via Internet et les logiciels libres

[Bernard Lang]

Bonjour,

I just received the message below (in French). It seems to me that it
is relevant to the topics discussed on our lists (open access), even
though it is not about academic publications, but about legal
information.

There is a reference to the "Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law"
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/declaration_mtl.epl?lang=en
which I did not know about ... and did not find on my archives of the list.

Actually searching the web for both BOAI and "Montreal Declaration"
yields very little : 10 references.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22montreal+declaration%22+boai&hl=en&lr=&hs=5Jt&filter=0

There seems to be missing links somewhere. Maybe this should be better
advertised, including the paper mentionned in the forwarded mail
below.


Cordialement

Bernard Lang


- Forwarded message from amavi.tago...@aero.bombardier.com -

List-Post: goal@eprints.org
List-Post: goal@eprints.org
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 07:44:02 -0400
From: amavi.tago...@aero.bombardier.com
Subject: [contact] Article sur la diffusion des droits africains via Internet  
et les
 logiciels libres
To: ori...@oridev.org, acsisforafr...@yahoo.com, yam...@fasonet.bf
Cc: i...@caida.org, c...@fundp.ac.be, tremblay.gae...@uqam.ca,
cont...@aful.org
Reply-To: amavi.tago...@aero.bombardier.com


Bonjour,

 je vous écris afin de vous demander si vous ne pouviez pas faire un lien
 vers un article que j'ai rédigé  portant sur les experiences de la
diffusion
 du droit en Afrique via Internet.
 Cet article a été publié dans la revue juridique du Centre de recherche
en
 droit public de l'Université de Montréal : Lex Electronica (
 http://www.lex-electronica.org/ ) (édition printemps 2008,vol.13 numero
1)

 Le lien menant à mon article est:
 http://www.lex-electronica.org/articles/v13-1/tagodoe_ndiaye.htm
 Il est directement téléchargeable via ce
 lien:http://www.lex-electronica.org/articles/v13-1/tagodoe_ndiaye.pdf

 Si vous connaissez d'autres sites susceptibles de me permettre de
diffuser
mon article, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire part.

 Cordialement

amavi.tago...@gmail.com

Amavi Tagodoe
Analyste d'affaires/Business Analyst
Data Management - Engineering & Supply Chain
Bombardier Aeronautique/ Bombardier Aerospace
Tel.: (514) 855-5001 Ext. 57646
Fax:(514) 855-7401
Email: amavi.tago...@aero.bombardier.com


- End forwarded message -
bernard.l...@inria.fr  ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/   ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
   INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

Re: European Commission nominates (another) high-level advisory group on research and science

[Bernard Lang]

I checked the list on
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/565&format=HTML

2 nominees from France.

One is prof. Alain Pompidou who just finished a 3 years term as
president of the European Patent Office.  I have no precise idea of
his actions there, but it does make me suspicious.  The EPO is not
exactly an organisation that promote free use of immaterial resources.
It seems to have a strong inclination the other way, even if its
requires distorting existing laws or treaties.

I am thinking in particular of the extension of patentability to
intangibles, such as software.

On this topic, he was previously a member of a commission of the
French Academy of Technology, in charge of a study of software
patentability. The least I can say is that the study was not conducted
ethically. Their choice of external experts to be audited was totally
and deliberately biased. However it did not really matter since the
report was essentially written before most of them were audited.
Howver, the role of Pompidou in that commission is not visible.

ref on this comission:
http://www.industrie.gouv.fr/observat/innov/carrefour/tabsyn.htm#36

regarding the remark on the writing of the report : this was evidenced
during a discussion with the chair of the commission, witnessed by
journalists.

> Let us wish them well.

Let us hope first they do a good job.

Bernard Lang

* N. Miradon  note le 22-04-08 :
> On 11 April 2008 the European Commission announced "the names of 22
> personalities who will make up the European Research Area Board (ERAB).
> These persons ... will provide independent and authoritative advice to the
> European Commission on European research and science policy..." [1]
>
> Let us wish them well. And may the Commission take their advice more
> seriously than it took the advice of their predecessors - e.g. the European
> Research Advisory Board's Final Report "Scientific Publication: Policy On
> Open Access" pub December 2006 [2], which has still not been implemented.
>
> N Miradon
> [1]
> http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/565&format=HTML
> [2]
> http://ec.europa.eu/research/eurab/pdf/eurab_scipub_report_recomm_dec06_en.pdf
> ("Recommendation #4. EURAB recommends that the Commission should consider
> mandating all researchers funded under FP7 to lodge their publications
> resulting from EC-funded research in an open access repository as soon as
> possible after publication, to be made openly accessible within 6 months at
> the latest.")

--
 Le brevet logiciel menace votre entreprise
   Software patents threaten your company
Soutenez la Majorité Économique - Support the Economic Majority
  http://www.economic-majority.com/

bernard.l...@inria.fr  ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/   ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
   INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

Re: Mandates, coercion and vegetables

[Bernard Lang]

Hi,

fear and pride,  carrots and sticks,  and lots of variants ...

Well, that is certainly one way of looking at improving social behaviour.

There is another essential component :  information and education.


People need to be tols in simple way why this policy is better, and
not in ideological terms.


I am sure you do that ...  please also advertise it, along with acrrots
and sticks.

Why do I recat this way :

I am working, in an official capacity, on the issues of copyright
piracy ... and I constantly deal with people who know only sticks,
occasionally carrots, and are never interested in information and
education.  Well, their view of it is to advertise their sticks.

And when they do pretend to explain, they use such outrageous lies
that no one really believes them ... so that it is all
counter-productive.

By the way, they are also very careful to ignore open access and all
the people who speak in this list.  It is quite natural since it would
debunk much of their premisses.

Information and education ...  explaining why ... as simply as possible.

apologies for insisting on the obvious.

Bernard


* Jean-Claude Guédon  note le 28-01-08 :
> This is an excellent way to put it all. I fully concur.
>
> Reiterating on an institutional basis the strategies of the "Cream of
> science" is very good. In fact, more generally, strategies that work at
> one scale are bound to work also at a lower scale. In other words, what
> works nationally can work institutionally.
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon
>
>
> Le dimanche 27 janvier 2008 à 13:38 -0500, Bernard Rentier a écrit :
>
> > I like Les Carr's way to put it. Indeed coercion and mandates are very 
> > unpleasant words. Being a
> > university "rector" (as we say, let's say Chairman, President or 
> > Vice-Chancellor), I am very sensitive
> > to words that remind us of dictatorship. At a meeting on Institutional 
> > Repositories in Valencia two
> > months ago, after having explained that in my university (Liege, Belgium), 
> > posting in te repository
> > every paper produced was mandatory, I was very unpleasantly compared to 
> > Stalin by one of the
> > attending faculty. It makes you think.
> > Since then, I try to avoid such dictatorial vocabulary.
> >
> > Obligation, mandate, coercion mean implicitly that ought to be a 
> > punishment, a penalty, if one
> > does not comply. But there is a huge panel of possible penalties. If you 
> > want compliance, use
> > penalties that mean something to people without shocking them.
> >
> > Indeed, telling your researchers very simply that only the publications 
> > deposited in the official list
> > of their university, i.e. the institutional repository, will be taken into 
> > account for evaluation of their
> > CVs in the context of promotions, will do. It is simple and fair. And it 
> > hits the goal. To the benefit
> > of all: the author and the University.
> >
> > The second aspect is not fear, it is pride. Making some publicity about the 
> > papers published by the
> > members of the Institution can be music to the researchers' ears. And 
> > selecting the good, or best
> > papers of the week or of the month, or even better, the top ten or twenty 
> > or whatever most
> > quoted papers and mentioning them specially on the University website is a 
> > real delight for the
> > author(s). And there are many other incentives one can think of along the 
> > same line.
> >
> > I hate the expression "carrot and stick" but I am sure everybody 
> > understands here what I mean:
> > both are effective, the secret is to use some stick perhaps, if really 
> > necessary, but mostly carrots.
> > The university leaders who have difficulties to innovate in the carrot 
> > world are left with the sticks
> > and will have a hard time succeeding in imposing reform. It is a great 
> > chance that institutional
> > repositories provide so many opportunities to develop new carrots. Let's 
> > juste use some
> > imagination and let's propose a wide panel of incentives.
>

--
 Le brevet logiciel menace votre entreprise
   Software patents threaten your company
Soutenez la Majorité Économique - Support the Economic Majority
  http://www.economic-majority.com/

bernard.l...@inria.fr  ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://bat8.inria.fr/~lang/   ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
   INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

Re: Author Publication Charge Debate

[Bernard Lang]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 09:14:58PM +, Suhail A. R. wrote:
> Bernard Lang wrote:
>
> > In order to understand your position, I would like to know where you
> > work, how much your library spends on publications, and what are your
> > qualifications to speak for poor countries (for example those where
> > hospitals cannot afford a single subscription).
>
> I work in Kuwait, Kuwait University spends a lot on the Medical Library
> (equivalent to any major US university Library at the very least - you can
> review details online at its website) and most major publications can be
> accessed without cost (to users). I did not realise that we require
> qualifications to speak for the third world, but none the less I have worked
> in Africa, South East Asia & the Caribbean so I have a good idea what user
> access restriction means. By the way, if you are located in an area where no
> subscriptions are available, and if you view my opinion as blocking the move
> to free access for such researchers, I should point out that this discussion
> is not arguing against open access as we know it, but about stopping
> publishers from replacing one kind of toll based system (access tolls) with
> another (author tolls) and therefore restricting author access in the name
> of open access. I have worked with a lot of authors in Kuwait (who work
> outside Kuwait University) who are unable to pay author tolls. Imagine what
> the scenario will be like in a poor third world country?
>
> Suhail

It is just that no one can do research without access to existing
literature. The simple fact that one does not reference recent literature
is enough to get a paper rejected. Furthermore, access is often needed
by people who do not intend to publish. Hospitals for example. So access
is the first order problem.

What is the point of free publication if you dot have the means or the
intent to write a publishable paper.

If I am wrong, I want someone from deprived areas to tell me so.  I
do not think that Kuwait, Europe or the USA qualify.

Another point is the ratio amount of access to amount of publication,
which goes obviously against poor areas.

How do people working outside Kuwait university gain access to needed
litterature in the old model ?  If they go to libraries, then
the money saved by libraries on access should help them now.  If you
cannot handle that, that is your organisational problem in Kuwait.  Do
not blame it on others.

But all this is short term ... and the discussion is really moot.

The very fact that people do not want to pay to publish will
encourage them to bypass the toll and find other ways.

If your position is that there should be no toll either way, for
access nor for publication, then you have my full support ... but I
understood that was not your position.

As far as I am concerned, serials publishers are history.  The
proper name is zombies ... dead people who have not been notified yet.
And that does not mean that peer assessment, selection and filtering
will disappear.  Libraries are the future, not publishers.

But I know this is not supposed to be said.  Apologies for my bad
manners.

Etienne, save your time, and do not reply.

Bernard

--
 Non aux Brevets Logiciels  -  No to Software Patents
   SIGNEZhttp://petition.eurolinux.org/SIGN

bernard.l...@inria.fr ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/  ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
 Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX

Re: Author Publication Charge Debate

[Bernard Lang]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 01:45:33PM +, Suhail A. R. wrote:

> If it requires giving the publishers obscene margins through institutional
> grants to provide free access, it will still be a better system than OA as
> now no one is limited and the rich researchers are indirectly easing the
> burden on the poor. This is an equitable solution for the research
> communities, even though it allows publishers to make more money.  I see the
> movement as a new dot.com scheme to make money by playing on the emotions of
> the research community. If TA publishers are making obscene margins, that
> too is the target of OA publishers, is it not?

Dear Dr. Suhail,

In order to understand your position, I would like to know where you
work, how much your library spends on publications, and what are your
qualifications to speak for poor countries (for example those where
hospitals cannot afford a single subscription).

Thank you

Bernard Lang

Re: Be prepared for commercial misuse of the term "open access"

[Bernard Lang]

Welcome to the club

What do you think happens with the much more widely used words "open
source", even though there is a precise definition available on the
web.

The promoters of "open source" tried to trademark the expression to
prevent that.  But they were denied the trademark (even though this
combination was new to my knowledge).
  On the other hand, Microsoft obtained the trademark "windows" even
though the word "windows" had been used for many years by other people
with precisely that meaning.

   BTW, who do you think creates revenue for the USPTO, or WIPO, or
whatever ?  If you are not good customers, do not expect good service.

   And be sure that all people who keep referring to IP mean their IP,
not yours.

Bernard

What's mine is mine - What's yours is negotiable.


On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 11:52:44AM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, [identity removed] wrote:
>
> > How strange - if you go to the Nature Immunology website the words "Open
> > Access" appear in the left column - not quite sure what it refers to - any
> > ideas?
> > 
>
> As correctly predicted by Richard Poynder only a few weeks ago:
>
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3066.html
>
> "the term ['Open Access'] is about to go through a very difficult
> period in which it will be used to mean all things to all
> men. That will make the work of those who support BOAI etc. far
> more difficult. Analysts and tipsters will start to use it to
> mean everything but what the originators of the term meant by it,
> companies will start to market products using the term open access
> (intentionally even, as they ramp up the tolls while pretending to
> be something else), and the general noise associated with all this
> activity will doubtless make life far more complex for list members
> (as if their lives were not already beset with misunderstandings
> and confusion!). More importantly, perhaps, the researchers (who,
> we are told, are the people who can make the difference here) will
> be confused, and may turn away from open access thinking it is
> something else."
>
> Stevan

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Re: Distance Learning and Copyright

[Bernard Lang]

On Mon, Jan 06, 2003 at 03:14:52PM -, Charles Oppenheim wrote:
> The UK Higher Education Funding Councils and UUK (representing
> vice-chancellors/principals/rectors of UK Universities) is about to publish
> guidelines on copyright ownership in e-learning materials. These include
> recommendations for contractual clauses of employment between staff and
> universities on this very topic.
>
> I have to say, though, that I find it hard to see what the problem is here.
> The doctrine of work for hire in the USA (as I understand it) and copyright
> law in the UK is that if someone ids in paid employment to do a particular
> task, then the employer owns the copyright in what is being created.  This
> seems to me to be equitable.

not to me ... and it is against the law here.

A creative piece of work belongs primarily to the author ... who then
decides what becomes of it.  That is droit d'auteurs ...  but
copyright always denied authors' rights.  Under copyright regime, you
can sell your soul, if it is marketable.

Bernard


  What is more contentious is if the employer
> sells the distance learning material and makes a lot of money from it, then
> the member(s) of staff involved in its creation should get some payment
> above their salaries.
>
> Charles
>
> Professor Charles Oppenheim
> Department of Information Science
> Loughborough University
> Loughborough
> Leics LE11 3TU
> 01509-223065
> (fax) 01509-223053
> - Original Message -
> From: "Stevan Harnad" 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 9:02 PM
> Subject: Distance Learning and Copyright
>
>
> > [Inquiry with identifying information removed]:
> >
> > > I'm contacting you because of your tremendous contribution in the area
> > > of free-for-use open access of research articles.
> > >
> > > My current concern lies in the area of teaching material and distance
> > > learning.
> >
> > I'll do my best (but my only area of quasi-expertise is refereed
> > research papers, before and after peer review...)
> >
> > > I currently teach [subject deleted] courses for which I have either
> > > prepared or am about to prepare lecture notes.
> > >
> > > My university has a policy of claiming copyright for all teaching
> materials,
> > > recognising that copyright for books (textbooks or otherwise) belongs
> > > to the author, except where the material was prepared for distance
> > > learning.
> > >
> > > My situation is this:
> > >
> > > I currently use very little written teaching material, a few overheads,
> > > a few notes to myself some talking and a lot of questions.
> > >
> > > Like many other institutions, mine is positioning itself in the distance
> > > learning market, and very soon the courses I teach may be offered as
> > > distance learning courses.
> > >
> > > In order to teach these courses I will be required to provide extensive
> > > written teaching material, over which the university will claim
> > > copyright
> > >
> > > I am not happy with this situation, and find it hard to believe other
> > > academics can just accept this.  My concerns centre round the fact that
> > > in writing this material I would not simply summarise existing
> > > knowledge, but put into my own ideas and thoughts.  As such I would not
> > > be happy to relinquish copyright.
> > >
> > > My questions for you are:
> > > Do you know of anyone working on, concerned about, discussing this
> > > issue?
> >
> > Yes, there are many people. One of the most active and able is called
> > (suitably) Hal Abelson, at MIT: h...@mit.edu
> > See his video at http://mit.edu/mitworld/content/libraries/scdw.html
> > Boyle is good too!
> >
> > And Peter Suber of FOS is also very knowledgeable in this.
> > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/
> >
> > > Most of the material I've read seems to be either: non-UK; assuming
> > > academics will accept this; taking the view of the institutions.
> > > I know you have initiated Skywriting courses and wonder what your own
> > > thoughts are on these issues
> >
> > On the one hand, I've always drawn a clear line between author-give-away
> > work (for which refereed-research papers are the paradigmatic case)
> > and author-non-give-away work (such as most books and textbooks), for
> > which authors want royalties and/or fees.
> > http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/1700/
> >
> > I know that it takes a lot of time and effort to write a textbook --
> > time and effort many instructors would not invest if there were no
> prospect
> > of royalties or fees. The university never tried to lay claim to their
> > paper-textbook copyright, nor did they claim a share in any royalties
> > because they were written on academic-salaried time. We are paid to teach
> > and do research, not to write textbooks, so if we put more into our
> > teaching materials because we anticipate that they can also be used for
> > a textbook that might bring royalties, that's a bonus for our teaching.
> >
> > Having said that: most instructors (including me) have n

Re: The archival status of archived papers

[Bernard Lang]

On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 04:55:03PM -0600, Bob Parks wrote:
> Bernard Lang writes:
> >
> >right ...
> >
> > why not erase all historical mistakes from the history books ...  so
> >that we can learn only how thing should go, and not how they can go
> >wrong.
>
> I was not speaking of books nor peer reviewed 'published' papers, but
> rather 'preprints' aka working papers.  That is a different issue.
>
> Bob

I realize that. I only meant that information about mistakes made is
also information.  There is no shame in having "published" (made
public) a mistake ... especially if you are the one to correct it.

And it is authentic data for science historians, or psychologist or
whatever to understand the scientific process.

It is good and useful to be able to label a version of a paper as
mistaken, so as to warn readers, and even to comment explaining why it
is, eevn why the error was made (actually all comments are good)
... but why remove the information.

  Small story that happened to me recently.  Someone is developping a
project, and used a search engine to see how is project is referenced.
The first reference is a comment I made about 18 months ago,
criticizing the site (which had been promoted much too early).  He
wrote to me asking whether I could do something about it.
Unfortunately, my comment was in the archive of a mailing list I do
not control, and I could do nothing.

  Now ...  should my message be removed from the archive ?
I believe not.  An archive is an archive.
Should the archive be made non accessible ?  what use then ?

  The conclusion I came to is that I should be able to comment my
message in the archive (the date should be a comment by itself, but
apparently many people cannot read dates).

Regards

  Bernard

> >Bernard
> >
> >
> >On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 02:57:02PM -0500, David Goodman wrote:
> >> If they disappear others may well make the same mistake. But if they
> >> continue to exist, with the error noted, people will learn from
> >> them (embarrassing as it may prove to be for the authors of the example).
> >>
> >> Bob Parks wrote:
> >>
> >> > ...  There are some papers which prove to be wrong, even
> >> > though there was considerable thought put into them - and possibly
> >> > they should, as much as possible, disappear.
> >> ...
> >> >
> >> > >bp> Maybe not for other professions, but certainly in economics, 
> >> > >business,
> >> > >bp> and political science (subjects about which I have knowledge).
> >> > >
> >> > >I am sure this was the practise and expectation in paper days, when
> >> > >drafts were sent only to specific trusted colleagues, but it is a fact
> >> > >that public posting on the Web is (like publication) another ball-game
> >> > >(a bit more like guassian roulette).
> >> >
> >> > YES, again I agree.
> >> >
> >> > >bp> The persistent URL should, as with arXiv, point to the most recent
> >> > >bp> draft and penultimate drafts should be in the trash.
> >> > >
> >> > >That is an option that should be available, but its use should be
> >> > >strongly discouraged. Better to selectively email the potentially
> >> > >embarrassing drafts, intended to be forgotten, and self-archive only the
> >> > >ones one feels one can live with being seen publicly (and potentially
> >> > >remembered and referred to forever). It is, after all, something of an
> >> > >antidote to unwelcome citing and quoting to be able to point to the
> >> > >extant draft and say: "See, it said 'temporary draft, to be revised, do
> >> > >not cite or quote'"
> >> >
> >> > As above, we might have a bit of disagreement about how strongly
> >> > one discourages removal, but I think we are in agreement.
> >> >
> >> > And again, it is not the "potentially embarrassing drafts,
> >> > intended to be forgotten," but rather any 'draft'.  I would certainly
> >> > not want to revert to the mailing of drafts - but maybe I make a
> >> > whole lot more mistakes than you do and that is the reason that we
> >> > slightly disagree.
> >> >
> >> > >(Ceterum censeo: This is all irrelevant to the issue of open access,
> >> > >which is mainly about open access to the research literature after peer
> >> &g

Re: The archival status of archived papers

[Bernard Lang]

right ...

 why not erase all historical mistakes from the history books ...  so
that we can learn only how thing should go, and not how they can go
wrong.

Bernard


On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 02:57:02PM -0500, David Goodman wrote:
> If they disappear others may well make the same mistake. But if they
> continue to exist, with the error noted, people will learn from
> them (embarrassing as it may prove to be for the authors of the example).
>
> Bob Parks wrote:
>
> > ...  There are some papers which prove to be wrong, even
> > though there was considerable thought put into them - and possibly
> > they should, as much as possible, disappear.
> ...
> >
> > >bp> Maybe not for other professions, but certainly in economics, business,
> > >bp> and political science (subjects about which I have knowledge).
> > >
> > >I am sure this was the practise and expectation in paper days, when
> > >drafts were sent only to specific trusted colleagues, but it is a fact
> > >that public posting on the Web is (like publication) another ball-game
> > >(a bit more like guassian roulette).
> >
> > YES, again I agree.
> >
> > >bp> The persistent URL should, as with arXiv, point to the most recent
> > >bp> draft and penultimate drafts should be in the trash.
> > >
> > >That is an option that should be available, but its use should be
> > >strongly discouraged. Better to selectively email the potentially
> > >embarrassing drafts, intended to be forgotten, and self-archive only the
> > >ones one feels one can live with being seen publicly (and potentially
> > >remembered and referred to forever). It is, after all, something of an
> > >antidote to unwelcome citing and quoting to be able to point to the
> > >extant draft and say: "See, it said 'temporary draft, to be revised, do
> > >not cite or quote'"
> >
> > As above, we might have a bit of disagreement about how strongly
> > one discourages removal, but I think we are in agreement.
> >
> > And again, it is not the "potentially embarrassing drafts,
> > intended to be forgotten," but rather any 'draft'.  I would certainly
> > not want to revert to the mailing of drafts - but maybe I make a
> > whole lot more mistakes than you do and that is the reason that we
> > slightly disagree.
> >
> > >(Ceterum censeo: This is all irrelevant to the issue of open access,
> > >which is mainly about open access to the research literature after peer
> > >review. How early a draft one wishes to make openly accessible before
> > >peer review is a matter for the author to decide. But open access should
> > >in general be thought of as being forever.)
> >
> > Ah, mea culpa.  My open access (moa?) concerns both pre peer review
> > and post peer review.  In economics, where lags between submission and
> > acceptance are large, require an open access working paper culture.
> >
> > I fully agree that the post peer review literature ought to be
> > persistant.  If corrections are needed, then errata should be posted
> > (and linked).
> >
> > Gee, now that we nearly completely agree, one of us isn't needed.
> > I hope its me.
> >
> > (;-)
> >
> > Bob
> >
> > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
> > # Economics Working Paper Archive #
> > #   http://econwpa.wustl.edu/wpawelcome.html  #
> > #gopher econwpa.wustl.edu #
> > # #
> > #   Send a mail message (empty body)  #
> > #   To: econ...@econwpa.wustl.edu #
> > #   Subject: get announce #
> > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
> > Always remember: inertia has no effect on the ultimate steady state 
> > solution.
> > NEVER remember:  Keynes said in the long run we are all dead.
> > *--*
> > | Bob Parks  Voice: (314) 935-5665 |
> > | Department of Economics, Campus Box 1208 Fax: (314) 935-4156 |
> > | Washington University|
> > | One Brookings Drive  |
> > | St. Louis, Missouri 63130-4899   bpa...@wuecona.wustl.edu|
> > *--*
> >
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Biological Sciences Bibliographer
> Princeton University Library
> dgood...@princeton.edu

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 Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion

Re: Book on future of STM publishers

[Bernard Lang]

universities may be silly.

but you have to be joking, there are thousand of more effective ways
to make $400 than fighting to be published.

Bernard


On Fri, Jul 19, 2002 at 10:42:11AM +0200, M. Meier wrote:
> As many of you wonder about the "outdated" media in which the dissertation
> is published, I will give you the obvious explanation: The University of
> Munich requires that all Ph.D manuscripts have to be handed in in print form, 
> no
> online or CD-ROM version allowed. To recover the printing costs (appr. $ 400),
> every Ph.D. candidate tries to find a decent enough publisher to get at
> least a small percentage back. My publisher, a newly founded PoD boutique, 
> would
> not be very happy if the book appeared as a free document on the www.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Michael Meier
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > This is an interesting point.  In some disciplines, there is a tradition
> > of
> > writing journal articles based on one's PhD research -- some of them
> > perhaps
> > published before the thesis is written -- while in other fields the
> > practice is
> > to turn one's thesis into a book.  However, the thesis itself, in its
> > original
> > form as an examination document, is usually made publicly available in the
> > library of its home university, and is indexed in various secondary
> > services
> > such as Dissertation Abstracts.  If universities in future mostly have
> > OAI-
> > compliant servers, and theses are submitted in electronic as well as
> > printed
> > form, there seems to be no obstacle to each university mounting its own
> > theses
> > on its server for free worldwide access.
> >
> > But... Stevan often makes the point that his concern is purely with the
> > scholarly journal literature, which is given away by its authors, and
> > which
> > should be avialable free of charge to other scholars.  He goes on to say
> > that
> > this argument does not apply to other kinds of publication for which
> > authors
> > are traditionally paid, which is the case with books, even scholarly
> > books. On
> > that argument, having to pay 30 Euros for Meier's book is o.k.
> >
> > Hmm... So, if we are in a discipline that uses journals, free access is
> > o.k.;
> > free access to the raw thesis is also o.k.; but if the discipline is one
> > that
> > has the tradition of a book based on the thesis, then free access is not
> > o.k.
> > What do others think of this line of argument?
> >
> > Fytton.
> >
> > Fytton Rowland, Dept of Information Science, Loughborough University, UK.
> >
> > Quoting Thomas Krichel :
> >
> > >   M. Meier writes
> > >
> > > > An exposé is availabel under http://www.ep.uni-muenchen.de/themen.htm.
> > > The
> > > > book as a whole will unfortunately not be available online for free.
> > >
> > >   I understand that the book is Michael's PhD thesis. I think that
> > >   it would be interesting to understand the reasons why it is not
> > >   freely available online. If the FOS movement can not convince scholars
> > >   in scholarly communication to make their work freely available online,
> > >   we do have a problem. I would like to understand what the problem is
> > >   here.
> > >
> > >   Cheers,
> > >
> > >   Thomas Krichel
> > > mailto:kric...@openlib.org
> > >
> > > http://openlib.org/home/krichel
> > >
> > > RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel
> > >
> > >
> >
> 
> --
> GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
> http://www.gmx.net

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Re: ALPSP statement on BOAI

[Bernard Lang]

On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 11:28:04AM +0100, Sally Morris wrote:
> Most are from their own server

   not enough  ... I want my papers to be reproducible on other servers
than my own.

> and the period varies from publisher to publisher.

   ...

bernard

> Sally
>
> Sally Morris, Secretary-General
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
>
> Phone:  01903 871686 Fax:  01903 871457 E-mail:  sec-...@alpsp.org
> ALPSP Website  http://www.alpsp.org
>
> Learned Publishing is now online, free of charge, at
> www.learned-publishing.org
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Bernard Lang" 
> To: 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 6:26 PM
> Subject: Re: ALPSP statement on BOAI
>
>
> > On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 06:21:47PM +0100, Sally Morris wrote:
> > > There have been various comments on our Association's reaction to the
> > > Budapest Open Access Initiative.  Our response seems to have been
> > > somewhat misunderstood:  we do not oppose initiatives which advocate the
> > > widest possible access to information - far from it, since dissemination
> > > is part of the mission of most of our member societies.  However, we
> > > believe that it is essential that a business model is first found which
> > > will pay for all the elements which researchers value.   Contrary to
> > > Stevan's view, researchers - as authors and as readers - do value very
> > > highly the whole spectrum of functions which publishers traditionally
> > > perform, and not just peer review itself.  Our latest, recently
> > > completed, research study established very high ratings for all of the
> > > following (listed in order of importance):  management (as distinct from
> > > execution) of the peer review process;  selection of relevant and
> > > quality-controlled content;  gathering articles together to enable
> > > browsing of relevant and quality-controlled content;  content editing
> > > and improvement of articles;  language or copy-editing;  checking of
> > > citations/adding citation links;  and (even) marketing (maximising
> > > visibility of journal).  Respondents predominantly believe that
> > > libraries should continue to pay for these processes in some way, and
> > > clearly more thinking and experimentation is urgently needed both on
> > > viable alternative business models, and on the potential migration path
> > > towards these.  Interestingly, other than in physics, respondents mostly
> > > had little or no idea what we meant by preprint or eprint archives.
> > > The full results of the study, Authors and Electronic Publishing, will
> > > be available for sale very shortly and details will appear on our
> > > website, http://www.alpsp.org
> > >
> > > One small clarification - Bernard Lang was under the impression that
> > > members only permitted free archival access to authors.  This is not
> > > what I meant;  a growing number of our member publishers make their
> > > online archival volumes freely accessible to all after a certain period.
> >
> > on their own archive ? ...
> > and what is that period ?
> >
> >publishers' archives is not enough for me ... first, how do I know
> > these archives will stay open the day W decides I am part of the evil
> > axis ?
> >Yes this is politics ... all we are talking about is also
> > politics, even when we do not say so.
> >
> >   I want literature to move around. To be indexable, searchable,
> > processable by anyone, with whatever tool one choses.
> >
> >   and experimentation on new models, not just business but also
> > alternatives on all the steps of the scientific publishing activity
> > is only possible if the litterature is freely accessible and movable.
> >
> >   I do care, very much, about the referreeing process.  But I do
> > believe that numerisation allows many interesting variants that should
> > be experimented with (and how can I do that if recent papers are not
> > accessible).  And the same goes for any other step you care to
> > consider.
> >
> > Cordialement
> >
> > Bernard
> >
> > > Sally
> > >
> > > Sally Morris, Secretary-General
> > > Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> > > South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
> > >
> > > Phone:  01903 871686 Fax:  01903 871457 E-mail:  sec-...@alpsp.org
> > > ALPSP Websit

Re: ALPSP statement on BOAI

[Bernard Lang]

On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 06:21:47PM +0100, Sally Morris wrote:
> There have been various comments on our Association's reaction to the
> Budapest Open Access Initiative.  Our response seems to have been
> somewhat misunderstood:  we do not oppose initiatives which advocate the
> widest possible access to information - far from it, since dissemination
> is part of the mission of most of our member societies.  However, we
> believe that it is essential that a business model is first found which
> will pay for all the elements which researchers value.   Contrary to
> Stevan's view, researchers - as authors and as readers - do value very
> highly the whole spectrum of functions which publishers traditionally
> perform, and not just peer review itself.  Our latest, recently
> completed, research study established very high ratings for all of the
> following (listed in order of importance):  management (as distinct from
> execution) of the peer review process;  selection of relevant and
> quality-controlled content;  gathering articles together to enable
> browsing of relevant and quality-controlled content;  content editing
> and improvement of articles;  language or copy-editing;  checking of
> citations/adding citation links;  and (even) marketing (maximising
> visibility of journal).  Respondents predominantly believe that
> libraries should continue to pay for these processes in some way, and
> clearly more thinking and experimentation is urgently needed both on
> viable alternative business models, and on the potential migration path
> towards these.  Interestingly, other than in physics, respondents mostly
> had little or no idea what we meant by preprint or eprint archives.
> The full results of the study, Authors and Electronic Publishing, will
> be available for sale very shortly and details will appear on our
> website, http://www.alpsp.org
>
> One small clarification - Bernard Lang was under the impression that
> members only permitted free archival access to authors.  This is not
> what I meant;  a growing number of our member publishers make their
> online archival volumes freely accessible to all after a certain period.

on their own archive ? ...
and what is that period ?

   publishers' archives is not enough for me ... first, how do I know
these archives will stay open the day W decides I am part of the evil
axis ?
   Yes this is politics ... all we are talking about is also
politics, even when we do not say so.

  I want literature to move around. To be indexable, searchable,
processable by anyone, with whatever tool one choses.

  and experimentation on new models, not just business but also
alternatives on all the steps of the scientific publishing activity
is only possible if the litterature is freely accessible and movable.

  I do care, very much, about the referreeing process.  But I do
believe that numerisation allows many interesting variants that should
be experimented with (and how can I do that if recent papers are not
accessible).  And the same goes for any other step you care to
consider.

Cordialement

Bernard

> Sally
>
> Sally Morris, Secretary-General
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
>
> Phone:  01903 871686 Fax:  01903 871457 E-mail:  sec-...@alpsp.org
> ALPSP Website  http://www.alpsp.org
>
> Learned Publishing is now online, free of charge, at
> www.learned-publishing.org

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Re: Interview with Derk Haank, CEO, Elsevier

[Bernard Lang]

On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 02:27:05PM -0500, Albert Henderson wrote:

> The 'profit motive' argument might have some
> standing if the private research universities that
> dominate sponsored research did not sport profits
> double those reported by Elsevier and other
> publishers. These universities have cut library
> spending by half in order to inflate their financial
> hoards. Moreover, universities have $1 billion
> in patent revenue now (which they did not have
> in 1980), resulting from sponsored research. They
> deprive library users of information generated by
> the rest of the world only because they have
> become skilled at academic 3-card Monte.

Let's burn them all.

They rob the people and Elsevier. They do not deserve to live.
Let's also burn all African universities who hoard their profits to
keep their countrymen in misery and ignorance.

Thanks Albert.  Now I see the light.

bernard.l...@inria.fr   Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/ Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
 Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX
 Non aux Brevets Logiciels  -  No to Software Patents
   SIGNEZhttp://petition.eurolinux.org/SIGN

Re: Interview with Derk Haank, CEO, Elsevier

[Bernard Lang]

The one important point I read there is:

« You can put your paper on your own Web site if you want. The only
thing we insist on is that if we publish your article you don't
publish it in a Springer or Wiley journal, too. In fact, I believe we
have the most liberal copyright policy available. »

  Is that what the Elsevier copyright form says ?

  Furthermore, he did not say anything about putting it on another web
site.  On an open archive managed by someone else ?

But the question was not asked.  Unfortunately.

Bernard



On Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 03:58:57PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Richard Poynder wrote:
> 
> > interview... with Elsevier Science chairman Derk Haank...
> > in April's Information Today:
> > http://www.infotoday.com/it/apr02/poynder.htm
> > richard.poyn...@dsl.pipex.com
> > http://www.richardpoynder.com
> 
> The interview is interesting and shows the Elsevier chairman to
> be very reasonable, open and well-intentioned.
> 
> I think that this confirms yet again that it is and always has been a
> waste of time and energy to demonize and vilify publishers like
> Elsevier, who really are not any better or worse than any other
> company, but just happen to find themselves in an anomalous business,
> with large profits but an unusual confluence of interests, including
> conflicts of interest, in a radically changing technological setting.
> 
> Instead of misdirecting more time and energy into trying to portray
> Elsevier as venal, it would be infinitely more constructive -- and more
> likely to help resolve the large and growing conflict of interest
> between what is best for research and researchers and what is best for
> research journal publishers in the online era -- to focus instead on the
> empirical points Derk Haank makes in the interview. Two of these are the
> most relevant ones:
> 
> (1) What are the products and services that research and researchers
> want and need from research journal publishers in the online era, and
> what are their true costs?
> 
> (2) Will researcher/institution self-archiving, in providing free
> online access to the full texts of all existing 20,000 research
> journals (over half science/tech/medicine, and 1500 of them Elsevier
> journals) eventually alter the current system (its products, services
> and costs), or will it simply exist in parallel to it?
> 
> This is a very reasonable question. It is clear that Elsevier is not
> trying or intending to block the freeing of access to the entire
> research journal literature through self-archiving. Elsevier is simply
> assuming that either self-archiving will not take place on any
> significant scale, or, if it does, it will have no appreciable effects
> on the overall structure of research journal publishing.
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#publishers-do
> 
> And this is all very reasonable and welcome! It confirms that the Budapest
> Open Access Initiative (BOAI) http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ should
> proceed with vigor in reaching its goal of Open Access. As soon as BOAI
> succeeds the goal of open access is (by definition) attained: it is
> no longer true that any researcher, anywhere, fails to have online
> access to the full corpus of 20,000 research journals because his
> institution cannot afford the access tolls.
> 
> The further question of whether or not the research journal system
> will remain more or less as it is now under these new open-access
> conditions is an empirical question -- and one on which [NB!] nothing
> urgent or important for research and researchers worldwide depends! Once
> online access to it all is free for all, any continuing journal price
> rises will become an irrelevant side-show for research and researchers,
> for they will have free access to it all. The conflict of interest will
> be resolved.
> 
> Regarding BOAI Strategy 2
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals
> (the establishment of alternative, open-access journals --
> self-archiving is BOAI Strategy 1), it is quite understandable that
> established journal publishers like Elsevier should hope that there
> will be no success: To hope otherwise it to wish success onto one's
> competitors! But here too it is an empirical question whether the
> research/researcher side of the PostGutenberg conflict-of-interest --
> the side that is increasingly pressing to have, at long last, the lost
> research impact that access-denying toll-barriers have cost them for
> 350 years, now that access-barriers are no longer necessary -- will
> resolve the conflict of interest not only by self-archiving its
> refereed research online, but also by creating new open-access journals
> (and converting established ones) for that research, and preferring
> those journals to the established toll-based ones for submitting to and
> publishing in.
> 
> The way to answer such empirical questions is not for researchers to
> continue to sit and deprecate Elsevier and the status quo, but to 

Re: BOAI : faisons tomber les fausses-idées (fwd)

[Bernard Lang]

Etienne,

  Bien sur que c'est indépendant du BOAI ...  je soulignait simplement
que non seulement ça l'est, mais qu'en plus tous ces gens qui ont peur
du moindre rique de changement me gonflent sérieusement.

  ceci dit l'expression "bijoux passes par les paires" est-elle
intentionelle ? ...  car elle a, disons, des ambiguités intéressantes.

Amicalement

   Bernard


On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 01:25:17PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> L'observation de Bernard Lang a propos des bijoux passes par les paires
> me rapelle d'abord la facetie sur le contresens de la part de Mme
> Schwarz concernant la probabilite conditionelle, en deduisant que le fait
> que Einstein fut (pretendument) dyslexique represente une bonne nouvelle
> pour son petit Max...
> 
> Mais rappelons que ce fameux systeme de controle de qualite par les
> pairs n'est pas plus ou moins que la pratique tout a fait normale
> de faire evaluer (et ameliorer) la qualite des oeuvres
> specialistes par les specialistes qualifies. Ce n'est ni de la censure
> ni de la dictature. C'est tout simplement un systeme qui epargne aux
> specialistes (et aux utilisateurs laiques) le devoir de faire soit-meme
> l'evaluation de toute et chacque oeuvre avant d'oser de l'utiliser.
> 
> Oui, puisqu'il s'agit des jugements humains, il s'agira toujours d'un
> certain coefficient d'erreur pour ce <>, et tout ce qui pourra
> l'ameliorer sera toujours le bienvenu (pourvu qu'il soit eprouve
> d'avant et demontre d'ameliorer plutot que le contraire).
> 
> Mais la question (perpetuelle, empirique) de la reforme et du
> perfectionnement du systeme de controle-de-qualite par les specialistes
> qualifies n'a absolument rien a voir avec le BOAI et le mouvement pour
> liberer l'acces aux ISSUS du systeme actuel, tel quel!
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/fr/index.shtml
> 
> Il s'agit de 2 millions d'articles controles par les pairs par annee,
> paraissant dans 20,000 revues controles par les pairs. La plupart de
> ces articles n'est pas accessible a la plupart de ces utilisateurs
> potentiels a cause des droits d'acces, et aux frais d'une perte
> incalculable d'eventuel impacte et progres scientifique.
> 
> Gardons au point notre but de liberer cette litterature du controle
> des prix plutot que du controle des pairs!
> 
> Stevan Harnad
> 
> > -- Forwarded message --
> > Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 10:24:13 +0100
> > From: Bernard Lang 
> > To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org
> > Subject: Re: BOAI : faisons tomber les fausses-idées
> > 
> > Dans mon travail scientifique, il m'est souvent arrivé d'utiliser des
> > travaux non controlés par les fameux pairs.  Et de m'en fort bien
> > porter.
> >   Nombre de documents négligés ou refusés par le fameux système de
> > filtrage sont néanmoins cité dans la littérature, voire utilisés
> > fructueusement par les praticiens.  Certains étaient passés de
> > photocopieuse en photocopieuse bien avant l'arrivée de l'Internet.  Je
> > me souviens en particulier d'un cours de Dana Scott, écrit à la main,
> > et qui était presque illisible à force de photocopies ... et de bien
> > d'autres articles moins pédagogiques et plus fondamentaux.  Je suis
> > d'ailleurs assez fier d'être l'auteur d'un certain nombre de pièces du
> > salon des refusés.
> > 
> >   Oui, le contrôle par les pairs reste cependant essentiel.  Mais
> > doit-il nécessairement continuer exclusivement sous la forme que nous
> > lui connaissons.  Serait-il par quelque miracle la seule chose au
> > monde à devoir être nécessairement exclue du darwinisme qui fait
> > progresser toute chose, de la divergence, de la concurrence et de la
> > selection  ... du contrôle des pairs, en somme.
> > 
> >   Alors toutes ces gens terrifiées par le moindre changement, qui ne
> > savent raisonner qu'à technologie constante alors qu'elle évolue à
> > grande vitesse, ou à organisation sociale constante ... c'est un peu
> > triste.  Sont-ils bien représentatifs de cette dynamique vivante que
> > doit être la science ?
> > 
> >   Hèlène, tu peux renvoyer cela sur la liste biblio-fr, si tu veux.
> > 
> > Amicalement
> > 
> > Bernard Lang
> > 
> > 
> > On Tue, Mar 05, 2002 at 02:05:30PM +, hb...@tours.inra.fr wrote:
> > > Par 2 messages reçus sur biblio-fr,  concernant la BOAI il m'a paru 
> > > évident 
> > > que

Re: BOAI : faisons tomber les fausses-idées

[Bernard Lang]

Dans mon travail scientifique, il m'est souvent arrivé d'utiliser des
travaux non controlés par les fameux pairs.  Et de m'en fort bien
porter.
  Nombre de documents négligés ou refusés par le fameux système de
filtrage sont néanmoins cité dans la littérature, voire utilisés
fructueusement par les praticiens.  Certains étaient passés de
photocopieuse en photocopieuse bien avant l'arrivée de l'Internet.  Je
me souviens en particulier d'un cours de Dana Scott, écrit à la main,
et qui était presque illisible à force de photocopies ... et de bien
d'autres articles moins pédagogiques et plus fondamentaux.  Je suis
d'ailleurs assez fier d'être l'auteur d'un certain nombre de pièces du
salon des refusés.

  Oui, le contrôle par les pairs reste cependant essentiel.  Mais
doit-il nécessairement continuer exclusivement sous la forme que nous
lui connaissons.  Serait-il par quelque miracle la seule chose au
monde à devoir être nécessairement exclue du darwinisme qui fait
progresser toute chose, de la divergence, de la concurrence et de la
selection  ... du contrôle des pairs, en somme.

  Alors toutes ces gens terrifiées par le moindre changement, qui ne
savent raisonner qu'à technologie constante alors qu'elle évolue à
grande vitesse, ou à organisation sociale constante ... c'est un peu
triste.  Sont-ils bien représentatifs de cette dynamique vivante que
doit être la science ?

  Hèlène, tu peux renvoyer cela sur la liste biblio-fr, si tu veux.

Amicalement

Bernard Lang


On Tue, Mar 05, 2002 at 02:05:30PM +, hb...@tours.inra.fr wrote:
> Par 2 messages reçus sur biblio-fr,  concernant la BOAI il m'a paru évident 
> que les mots "libres accès", "archives", "auto-archivage" provoquaient un 
> rejet systématique de tout ce qui peut être attaché à ces mots.
> Donc très rapidement je résume quelques points de "frottements" pour que 
> chacun ait envie d'aller lire la BOAi sans arrière-pensée et avec curiosité.
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/fr/
>1) l'autoarchivage préconisé dans la BOAI n'est pas synomyme de dépot 
> d'articles non contrôlés par les pairs.
>2)  Les articles déposés dans des archives institutionnelles  peuvent 
> être  de 2 ordres :des pré-publications qui vont être contrôlées par les 
> pairs et des post-publications qui ont déjà été certifiées, c'est à dire 
> publiées dans des revues.
>   3)  Les articles publiés dans des revues sont des articles qui ont été 
> donnés par les chercheurs et pour lesquels les chercheurs n'attendent pas 
> de rénumération. Ils sont les seuls concernés par la BOAI.
>   4 ) Chaque chercheur choisi la politique d'archivage (pre-publication ou 
> post-publication) qui lui convient, en fonction des risques qu'il estime 
> courir par la mise en dépot, avant publication ou des avantages qu'il peut 
> avoir à diffuser des résultats rapidement dès la soumission de l'article à 
> une revue .
>5) Il est très facile de faire la différence dans une archive, entre une 
> pré-publication et une post-publication et de les utiliser en connaissance 
> de cause.
>6)  BOAI ne veut pas dire destruction  du système d'édition existant. La 
> BOAI demande une nouvelle forme de coopération aux éditeurs : elle demande 
> un accès gratuit en ligne aux articles qui ont été donnés par les chercheurs.
> pour exemple je donnerai 2 titres qui donnent l'accès gratuit en ligne 
> depuis des années et qui semblent continuer sans trop de problèmes à sortir 
> sous forme papier payante.
> 
> Journal of Biochemistry
> British  Medical Journal
> 
> Une  revue a osé faire la même chose depuis peu, il s'agit de Cortex.
> La revue Nature aussi, s'implique d'une autre manière plus discrète mais 
> qui peut-être efficace. Je n'entrerai pas dans les détails dans ce message.
> 
> J'espère que les malentendus seront levés et que vous serez nombreux à lire 
> les traductions françaises de la BOAI faites par Viviane Boulétreau, de 
> l'université Lumière, Lyon 2.
> Cela a été un lourd travail et nous pouvons lui en être très 
> reconnaissants. Il s'agissait que chacun comprenne bien de quoi il s'agit 
> sans barrière de langue. Avec ces traductions nous n'avons aucune excuse de 
> ne pas lire et de ne pas comprendre.
> ;
> 
> 
> Helene Bosc
> Bibliotheque
> Unite Physiologie de la Reproduction
> et des Comportements
> UMR 6073 INRA-CNRS-Universite F. Rabelais
> 37380 Nouzilly
>  France
> 
> http://www.tours.inra.fr/
> TEL : 02 47 42 78 00
> FAX : 02 47 42 77 43
> e-mail: hb...@tours.inra.

Re: ALPSP statement on BOAI

[Bernard Lang]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2002 at 09:44:41PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> > The advent
> > of electronic publication has reduced these costs much less than was hoped;
> > indeed it has added new ones, such as database creation and maintenance,
> > provision of the searchability and usability which users want, and
> > permanent archiving and preservation. In order for the core functions of
> > formal publication to continue, they must be paid for at some point in the
> > communication chain.
>
> Again, ALPSP is forcibly co-bundling more and more add-ons (and costs)
> with the peer review, not testing whether those add-ons are needed or
> wanted.

I would even say that I consider that those add-ons are a
disadvantage.  What I need is access to the raw data so that I can
decide myself what add-ons I wish, with what technology ...  so that
technological choices and innovations are permitted to me and to all
in that respect ... rather than being forced to take what is fed to
me.

> > ALPSP recognises that there is a growing problem, driven by the continuing
> > growth in the volume of research literature, and the much lower growth, if
> > any, in the library budgets available to buy it. Many of our members
> > already make archival content freely available, and do not restrict authors
> > from posting and re-using their own articles;
>
> If I understand this correctly, it means that many ALPSP publishers
> make their full-text content openly accessible after a certain time has
> elapsed after publication.

apparently not ... only to authors, and that is certainly not satisfactory.

> This is very welcome (though one would want
> to know how many journals, and after how much time has elapsed), but it
> is too little, and too late. Research results are published so that
> they are accessible to all potential users, immediately. And the
> reality is that most users (more specifically, their institutions)
> cannot afford the access tolls for most published (refereed) research.
>
> The second ALPSP clause is potentially much more important: Does
> "posting and re-using their own articles" include self-archiving them
> online? I will provisionally assume that it does (otherwise I have no
> idea what "posting" means here).
>

Bernard

--
 Non aux Brevets Logiciels  -  No to Software Patents
   SIGNEZhttp://petition.eurolinux.org/SIGN

bernard.l...@inria.fr ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/  ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
 Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX

Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist

[Bernard Lang]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2002 at 11:00:27PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Chris Zielinski wrote:
> > Stevan Harnad wrote:
> > >
> > > [. . .] Apart from wanting to be
> > > properly credited for its authorship (i.e., protected from plagiarism)
> > > and to be ensured that the text is not altered or corrupted in any
> >
> > I have to confess that I have no real idea what this latter
> > condition really means.  Misattribution of authorship for
> > subsequent revisions and work is certainly an issue, but
> > just what does it mean for the author to assert that the
> > text is not to be altered or corrupted?
>
> It means that copies must be verbatim, and the authorship and original
> locus of publication must be clearly stated. It also means that, apart
> from explicit quoting or excerpting (where the source and locus must
> again be explicitly specified) there mayt be no alteration in
> reproducing the text.


Your choice ... not mine ... for my own production, of course

  http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/licence/v1/fddl.html

  But copyright says I am free to fix my rules for myself.
  Some others have chosen similar rules.

  http://www.openresources.com/magazine/license/


Bernard


> Stevan Harnad
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
> access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
> American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
>
> 
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> or
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
>
> You may join the list at the amsci site.
>
> Discussion can be posted to:
>
> american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org

--
 Non aux Brevets Logiciels  -  No to Software Patents
   SIGNEZhttp://petition.eurolinux.org/SIGN

bernard.l...@inria.fr ,_  /\o\o/Tel  +33 1 3963 5644
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/  ^  Fax  +33 1 3963 5469
INRIA / B.P. 105 / 78153 Le Chesnay CEDEX / France
 Je n'exprime que mon opinion - I express only my opinion
 CAGED BEHIND WINDOWS or FREE WITH LINUX

Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist

[Bernard Lang]

  This is why the only way to make a document freely available and
replicable in a distributed library is to associate a licence.  It is
certainly necessary to provide standard minimal licences, because
authors do not want to be bothered.
   Possibly a licence could be associated with the fact of placing a
paper in a repository, but the author should at least click somewhere.

  And the legal value of a licence may depend on geopgraphic location.

Bernard

On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 12:24:06PM -, Graham P Cornish wrote:
> I seems to me that the problem with copyright is that you have it whether or
> not you want to use it.  Those who want to use what you own have no way of
> telling whether or not you want to enforce your rights or not, or to what
> degree you might wish to enforce or waive them.  What is needed is an
> internationally recognised system for indicating just what owners are happy
> to allowin different circumstances.  I hope to be working with an
> international agency on thisissue shortly.
>
> GrahamP Cornish
> Copyright consultant
> gra...@copyrightcircle.co.uk
> www.coyrightcircle.co.uk
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Bernard Lang" 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 11:03 AM
> Subject: Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist
>
>
> > I do agree that toll-free access is the only essential issue, at this
> > time, and that mixing it with free software or open-content licences can
> > only muddle the issues ...  at least where public discussions are
> > concerned, and current public action.
> >
> > Considering alternative licences is however an interesting topic,
> > and ON A PERSONAL BASIS, authors can well chose to grant even more
> > freedom than called for by advocates of toll-free access to the
> > peer-reviewed research literature. I personally do allow people to
> > modify my papers, as long as it is clear who wrote what. Basically,
> > it allows for direct reuse of fragments of papers in other work. Just
> > my choice.
> >
> > I am also concerned with fighting the data-base legislation, which
> > can also get in the way.
> >
> > My licence is at:
> >
> > http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/licence/v1/fddl.html
> >
> > If you are interested in variations and analyses of licences, for
> > text and other types of resources ... see
> >
> >   http://aful.org/presentations/licences/
> >
> > The page is in French, but it refers to documents in French and
> > English. I unfortunately cannot handle other languages. It has four
> > sections: licences for software, licences for text and/or for artistic
> > content, references to other sites, references to documents analyzing
> > licences.
> >
> > I would like to point out that for textbooks, when the author is
> > WILLING, the situation is much like software. Textbooks are often
> > complex, and there are documents and management tools very similar to
> > what would constitute source code. Also, textbook often need
> > maintenance, to correct mistakes, make addition, follow the evolution
> > of the field, adapt to a specific teaching situation.
> > Free-software-like licences are then very useful.
> >
> > I do know one case of an author fighting to get his textbook out of
> > the clutches of the publisher. The reason is that the textbook needs
> > maintenance to survive, and he no longer has the time to do it
> > himself, nor has anyone else, given the huge size of the book. The only
> > manageable solution is to let experts separately improve the sections
> > for which they are competent: This is pretty much an encyclopedia of
> > internet programming. Encyclopedias are actually a good example of
> > cooperative creation in the text world.
> >
> > More generally, similar issues arise regarding the creation, evolution
> > and maintenance of educational resources.
> >
> > But I do agree that these are problems quite different from the specific
> > on of toll-free access to the refereed research literature.
> >
> > Bernard
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 03:21:39PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> > > On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Seth Johnson wrote:
> > >
> > > > Okay.  As long as you're dealing with expressive wholes,
> > > > you're standing on legal precedent.
> > > >
> > > > It would help if some stipulations were made to assure that
> > > > it's clear you're talking about the original presentations,
> > > > presentations to which the author asserts authoritative
> > > > origin, and

Re: "Copyleft" article in New Scientist

[Bernard Lang]

I do agree that toll-free access is the only essential issue, at this
time, and that mixing it with free software or open-content licences can
only muddle the issues ...  at least where public discussions are
concerned, and current public action.

Considering alternative licences is however an interesting topic,
and ON A PERSONAL BASIS, authors can well chose to grant even more
freedom than called for by advocates of toll-free access to the
peer-reviewed research literature. I personally do allow people to
modify my papers, as long as it is clear who wrote what. Basically,
it allows for direct reuse of fragments of papers in other work. Just
my choice.

I am also concerned with fighting the data-base legislation, which
can also get in the way.

My licence is at:

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/licence/v1/fddl.html

If you are interested in variations and analyses of licences, for
text and other types of resources ... see

  http://aful.org/presentations/licences/

The page is in French, but it refers to documents in French and
English. I unfortunately cannot handle other languages. It has four
sections: licences for software, licences for text and/or for artistic
content, references to other sites, references to documents analyzing
licences.

I would like to point out that for textbooks, when the author is
WILLING, the situation is much like software. Textbooks are often
complex, and there are documents and management tools very similar to
what would constitute source code. Also, textbook often need
maintenance, to correct mistakes, make addition, follow the evolution
of the field, adapt to a specific teaching situation.
Free-software-like licences are then very useful.

I do know one case of an author fighting to get his textbook out of
the clutches of the publisher. The reason is that the textbook needs
maintenance to survive, and he no longer has the time to do it
himself, nor has anyone else, given the huge size of the book. The only
manageable solution is to let experts separately improve the sections
for which they are competent: This is pretty much an encyclopedia of
internet programming. Encyclopedias are actually a good example of
cooperative creation in the text world.

More generally, similar issues arise regarding the creation, evolution
and maintenance of educational resources.

But I do agree that these are problems quite different from the specific
on of toll-free access to the refereed research literature.

Bernard


On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 03:21:39PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> > Okay.  As long as you're dealing with expressive wholes,
> > you're standing on legal precedent.
> >
> > It would help if some stipulations were made to assure that
> > it's clear you're talking about the original presentations,
> > presentations to which the author asserts authoritative
> > origin, and presentations of originality that may be false.
> > The factual elements of any expressive work are fair game.
> > This is essential from the standpoint of free online
> > collaboration.
>
> Here is a good rule of thumb for advocates of toll-free access to the
> peer-reviewed research literature:
>
> Don't aspire to be more royalist than the king, or more papist than the
> pope!
>
> What was enough for those who got access via tolls should also be enough
> for those who get access toll-free. No need to stipulate any more.
>
> OF COURSE the readers of articles in peer-reviewed journals are
> free to take the ideas and findings in those articles and build on them
> as they see fit in their own work. That's the very reason why the
> researchers published it in the first place!
>
> What we are referring to here is not the ideas and findings that are
> reported. Their usability was never in dispute. We are talking here
> about access to the TEXT. And it is the TEXT that may not be corrupted,
> or assigned a false authorship.
>
> (Moreover, using findings without citing their source is not a violation
> of copyright, though it may be exposable and punishable as violation
> of priority or even plagiarism in other senses.)
>
> These confusions come, again, I think, because of putting too much
> weight on the weak analogies between access to text and access to other
> things, such as software or music, and perhaps also on weak analogies
> between copyright and patent. When this happens, we are dealing with
> MISanalogies and not analogies, and we are better to remind ourselves
> of what the "use" of refereed journal articles has been all along,
> independent of whether it was accessed for-fee or for-free.
>
> Stevan Harnad

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Re: Clarification of "parasitism" and copyright

[Bernard Lang]

you also have symbions ... and that is even more positive

bernard

On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 01:19:35PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Chris Rusbridge wrote:
>
> > Stevan, remember the difference between parasites and epiphytes. Parasites
> > kill their hosts. That does not seem to be quite what you are saying.
>
> Very astute point by Chris! Yes, epiphyte is the apter metaphor:
> Self-archiving will not kill its host but cure it from a maladaptive and
> unsustainable condition, an obsolete Gutenberg legacy. Self-archiving
> will not only provide immediate open access for all, but it will force
> refereed journal publishing to cut inessentials, downsize to the
> essentials, and recover its costs via the natural means for this special
> literature, namely, institutional peer-review costs paid per outgoing
> accepted (or submitted) paper, instead of access-blocking tolls paid
> per incoming journal.
>
> Stevan Harnad

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Re: Sustaining ePrints

[Bernard Lang]

I am sorry for not following all details ... and apologies if I am out
of order.

Just to mention 2 points:

  - the catch-22 below is standard ... including for private business.
Bootstraping is always the difficulty.

  - the european commission does support free software projects.  There
have been several calls already, in different areas.

Bernard


On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 02:01:17PM +, Bob Kemp wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> Thanks for the contributions from Chris, Mike and Stevan.
>
> Stevan says:
>
> >The longevity of Eprints is a legitimate concern. But creating an
> >ever greater momentum to fill university Eprints archives is an
> >even more substantive concern, and success in meeting it is the best
> >way to meet the first concern as well.
>
> I agree totally - it's a case of making a commitment and jumping in at the
> deep end. However, there's an element of Catch-22 here. Eprints will be
> sustainable if ePrints is successful. But ePrints will be (more) successful
> if we can show it to be sustainablewe have to get over the initial hump.
>
> More specifically, the problem is that at local institutional level not
> everybody is ready for an eprint commitment. We are going through a process
> of education and persuasion in order to convince people that what we are
> engaged in is a feasible and legitimate activity that will provide an
> important long-term service. This involves a number of issues, and Stevan
> for one has provided plenty of good arguments to deploy.
>
> What we're developing here is another argument, being able to point to the
> underlying tools and say that these are going to be available, stable, and
> supported for many years to come. Having these contributions from
> Christopher, Mike and Stevan certainly makes it easier for me to make a
> case here at Strathclyde, and I imagine this applies elsewhere.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bob
>
>
> Dr Bob Kemp
> Information Officer, Digital Information Office
> Centre for Digital Library Research
> University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NS
>
> Phone: +44 (0)141 548 2379  FAX: +44 (0)141 548 2102

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Re: Sustaining ePrints

[Bernard Lang]

How does one know how long software development will last ?

In the case of commercial software ... as long as the company (and that
is not too predictable these days) or as long as a given company thinks
it is worthwhile and not hampering another more profitable market (not
very predictable either).

In the case of free software (free as in freedom), it usually lasts as
long as it is sufficiently useful to a community of users so that they
will find ways of investing a little bit in it.

How do you think Linux has picked up 27% of the server market?
Why do you think Linux is getting a major position in embedded systems
market, and especially in applications where longevity is critical?

There is a lot of literature on that issue ... all over the net.

Cordialement

Bernard

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Kindred Issues in Kindred Fora: Open Source Software

[Bernard Lang]

One issue for computer scientists is that, to a significant extent,
their literature is composed of programs. The interest of free software
(free as in freedom, to do what you please with it) is that it can be
improved and built upon, exactly the way one does for mathematical
theories or proofs, or other scientific theories for that matter.

If Wiles had not published his proof (which was discovered buggy, and
thus could be corrected), his result would have had, quite rightly, no
credibility. The same holds true for software ... you cannot trust (in
many ways) software that cannot be freely examined and experimented
with (including making changes).

But the difference is that scientific literature belongs to the author,
and hence you can solve your problems by uniting and taking it in your
own hands, as Stevan is suggesting,

On the other hand, software belongs to employers, which makes things a
bit more difficult. More importantly, software is now encumbered with
the patenting system (and also indirectly by legislations like DMCA) so
that publishing software can become a criminal offense, not to mention
court actions that can go very quickly over $1000 000.

All this is based on a totally misguided view of the economics of
intangibles. For ideological reason, people try to apply a capitalistic
model that worked well for material economy (e.g. 19th century). But
the economic laws of intangibles are quite different (for example,
marginal cost is zero), and there are many reasons to believe that the
model cannot be adapted that trivially.

Actually, I do not know of a single article in economic literature that
[implies] the usefulness of software patenting. Quite the opposite.
But I am interested in finding some ... if you know of any.

Scientific literature is just one problem. Probably the easiest one to
solve right now... this being said without any intent to demean its
importance and the work done here.

Happy new year

Bernard

On Sun, Jan 06, 2002 at 10:29:51AM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> To: Peter Suber 
>
> Hi Peter, in case you didn't get this: An item for your next FOS
> Newsletter. On this particular issue, our narrower concerns about Open
> Access to the peer-reviewed literature and the wider concerns about
> open sourcing and public domain patenting of Bernard Lang as well as
> the worries about University privatization ambitions of Joseph Ransdell
> definitely converge...  the only reason I keep trying to
> re-route them away from the AmSci Forum is that if we start mixing up
> Universities' ambivalence about software give-aways with their hitherto
> forthcomingness about research giveaways, we are only asking for
> needless trouble!
>
> With software, the potential revenue at least makes it a debatable
> proposition (though an odious one) that the Universities should market
> their developments for revenue; but with research, it becomes
> altogether absurd and self-defeating. So better keep the two arenas
> apart, so they don't cross-pollinate one another's confusions!
> Chrs, Stevan
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 23:13:26 -0600
> From: sterling stoudenmire 
> To: har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Subject: Public Money, Private Code
>
> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/04/university_open_source/print.html
>
> >Public money, private code
> >
> >The drive to license academic research for profit is
> >stifling the spread of software that could be of universal
> >benefit.
> >
> >- - - - - - - - - - - -
> >By Jeffrey Benner
> >
> >Jan. 4, 2002 | Would the creation of the Internet be allowed
> >to happen today?
> >
> >The networked society we live in is in large part a gift
> >from the University of California to the world. In the
> >1980s, computer scientists at Berkeley working under
> >contract for the Defense Department created an improved
> >version of the Unix operating system, complete with a
> >networking protocol called the TCP/IP stack. Available for a
> >nominal fee, the operating system and network protocol grew
> >popular with universities and became the standard for the
> >military's Arpanet computer network. In 1992, Berkeley
> >released its version of Unix and TCP/IP to the public as
> >open-source code, and the combination quickly became the
> >backbone of a network so vast that people started to call
> >it, simply, "the Internet."
> >
> >Many would regard giving the Internet to the world as a
> >benevolent act fitting for one of the world's great public
> >universities. But Bill Hoskins, who is currently in charge
> >of protecting the intellectual property produced at U.C.
> >Berkeley, thinks it must have been a mistake. "Whoever
&

Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

[Bernard Lang]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2001 at 11:52:11PM -0500, Arthur P. Smith wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Dec 2001, Bernard Lang wrote:
> > [...]
> > I have absolutely no experience with copy editing but ...
> >
> >  How much of the process could actually be mechanized ?  Part of it at
> > least is checking specific presentation rules, I believe.
>
> A good question. The answer though is only a little,
> that I am aware of. One can attempt to use "grammar
> checkers" and "spelling checkers" but they're of dubious value with
> abstruse technical information (most grammar checkers don't like the
> standard scientific passive voice for example...). You can look
> for yourself at our style guide:
>
> http://publish.aps.org/STYLE/
>
> and see how much of that looks mechanical. Some is, most is not;
> the part that is not mostly requires some sort of human judgment.
> For example, "within the explanatory material of a caption include
> definitions of all symbols, abbreviations, and acronyms used in the
> figure that have not been previously defined in the text..." - how
> much of that can be checked mechanically?

sounds rather mechanizable to me

> So there is an irreducible human judgment component in this, I believe
> much more than 50% of the work needing to be done, that
> cannot be automated with any current technology.

I wonder

> >   Another point is that copy editing can be paid for separately, by
> > authors (or institutions who can afford it) or by people who think
> > some pieces of works do deserve it.
>
> Note my discussion of this in response to Andrew Odlyzko. I don't
> think that's the right way to go, but if people are doing it anyway
> it's worth analyzing how well it is working for the furthering
> of scholarly research in these areas.
>
> >   We can publish first, and review or copy edit later, in whatever
> > order is convenient, or never if no one wishes to do it.  I do not
> > care if, when, and how reviewing has been done ...  all I need to know
> > is whether it has been done, and by whom or what group, and maybe even
> > have the comments.
> >With that I am a big enough boy to make my own decisions.  Choosing
> > a journal is just choosing a set of reviewers.
>
> Is it? I think it means much more than that. Or at least it
> has historically meant also choosing a certain style and quality of
> presentation, and a certain assessment of worth in the
> articles - a yes/no up/down judgment made by two or more people
> with real scientific experience, making a decision with
> real meaning and consequences. Just getting "reviews" from
> a particular bunch of reviewers is quite a different thing.

I just meant that all these qualities (not presentations) are
essentially embodied in the college of reviewers.

> Of course reform of peer review is a very interesting subject
> in its own right. Does it need to be considered along with
> new business models for scientific publication? I would say
> yes, but it's an area one has to tread carefully...

sure ... but not a reason to be over conservative

> > [...]
> >And why should papers have only one type of reviewing, when they
> > are so many different publics with different needs,  even within the
> > not for profit litterature.
>
> so you want to spend more money on peer review, not less? :-)

not the issue ... there is much wasted reviewing already.
Whatever is needed will be done.

>   Arthur

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Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

[Bernard Lang]

Just one remark ...

  the current system does waste a lot of reviewing work ... if only
because:
  - the same paper gets submitted in several places, when not accepted
  - papers are read by many people who never get to voice their
opinion, whether valuable or not.

  There are many ways that reviewing information can be produced,
stored and used in the more flexible world of the Internet.
   and there are ways of rating reviewers and reviews (I think this is
already a formally studied topic), or groups of reviewers.
   I have not given much thought as to how anonymity of reviewers
could be maintained in such schemes, but I would guess it is
atractable problem.

   apologies for saying "published" instead of "publicly archived" ...

   and I understand your aim is to have access to the peer-reviewed
corpus ... sorry for being off topic

Bernard


On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 11:56:01PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Dec 2001, Bernard Lang wrote:
>
> > We can publish first, and review or copy edit later, in whatever
> > order is convenient, or never if no one wishes to do it.
>
> We can publicly archive first (let's reserve the term "publish" for
> something more than this mere vanity-press, lest it lose its meaning)
> and then we can submit that unrefereed preprint to an established
> journal for peer review. (Why established? Because otherwise you have
> no way to know what quality-standards have been met by their having
> accepted it for publication!)
>
> Or, we can leave the paper forever as merely a publicly archived,
> unrefereed preprint.
>
> The primary objective of this Forum, however, is to attain free online
> access to the entire full-text contents of the peer-reviewed corpus of
> 20,000 refereed journals. Vanity self-archiving of unrefereed preprints
> does not meet that objective. Online access to unrefereed preprints is
> merely a bonus, an extra, not an alternative way of meeting the objective
> of attaining free online access to the peer-reviewed corpus.
>
> "Self-Archiving Refereed Research vs. Self-Publishing Unrefereed Research"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1468.html
>
> > I do not care if, when, and how reviewing has been done... all I need
> > to know is whether it has been done, and by whom or what group, and
> > maybe even have the comments.
>
> (This is a bit confusing, as "if" is synonymous with "whether," mais
> passons...)
>
> Whether the "it" has been done, and "by whom," for our purposes, is the
> question of which known, established quality-controller and certifier
> (i.e., which journal) has peer-reviewed and accepted the paper. That
> tags its level in the quality hierarchy, and those tags are critical
> for navigating the enormous literature for busy researchers who would
> rather not spend their time reading or trying to build upon material of
> uncertain quality. This kind of reliable filtering cannot be done on
> an ad hoc basis (any more than eggs can be certified on an ad hoc
> basis: the egg-graders have to establish their reputations).
>
> And comments are always welcome, but they are a luxury. See:
>
> http://www.bbsonline.org/
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/psycoloquy/
>
> > With that I am a big enough boy to make my own decisions.  Choosing
> > a journal is just choosing a set of reviewers.  Why should I do it
> > before I know what papers I'll be looking for.  Why not consider a
> > bunch of papers and then decide which types of reviews I'll consider
> > adequate  (for example depending on how selective I need be).
>
> Because there are only so many hours in the day, and an awful lot of
> stuff is written. I would rather have trusted quality filters in
> advance, not after I have committed my time! and I'd rather have a
> literature already written with the foreknowledge (on the part of its
> authors) that it will have to answer to peer review. And for the peer
> reviewers to be able to certify that I can trust a paper, I first have
> to know I can trust the peer review. So its quality level must have
> been reliably demonstrated in advance.
>
> In other words, I need journals.
>
> >And why should papers have only one type of reviewing, when they
> > are so many different publics with different needs,  even within the
> > not for profit litterature.
>
> Because peer-review is a scarce, over-farmed resource; because peers
> review for free; because one review is more than enough for most
> papers; and because pre-certification peer review is not the same a
> post-certification peer commentary...
>
> "A Note of Caution About 'Reforming the System&#x

Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

[Bernard Lang]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 02:19:23PM -0500, Arthur Smith wrote:
>
> >  [...]
> > This means that the only remaining per-article real costs are
> > (1) dissemination on-paper, (2) any on-line enhancements by the
> > publisher (special mark-up, linking), and (3) peer review.
>
> By (2) I assume Stevan is referring to the copy-editing process, which I
> cited, with markup being one of the issues. Any publisher would like to
> do this cheaper if they could be sure of the same level of "quality".
> The real question, which needs to be answered not just by this group,
> but by all those within the "audience" for science, whether other
> researchers, other scholars, media, public, etc., is, what level of
> copy-editing is actually justified, on grounds of the need for
> accessibility of that scientific research?
>
> Commercial companies may be more attuned to the economic justification
> for copy-editing than we are, as a non-profit. So it would certainly be
> of interest to see whether they are spending more, less, or about the
> same as us per paper on copy-editing. As for-profit entities, it's
> unlikely any company would spend much more than is absolutely necessary
> to create a journal that meets the expectations of their market. Andrew
> Odlyzko's argument suggests that they may be spending more than us - if
> so, why is that?
>
> Note that I'm not worrying about freeing the literature here; if
> publishing free literature really involved no copy-editing, we would
> likely never do it, as a publisher with a historical interest in certain
> publication standards. Stevan's arguments for that are fine, and it'll
> go however far it'll go pretty much whatever we do. It may have some
> effect on the market for "quality", but we seem not to have experienced
> too much of that effect yet. But we still would like to reduce the high
> costs libraries (or institutions who may replace them in funding
> publication) have to bear, and if "lowering quality" at copy-editing is
> really acceptable, perhaps that will actually happen.
>
> So, the question again: what level of copy-editing is actually
> justified, on grounds of the need for accessibility of that scientific
> research?

I have absolutely no experience with copy editing but ...

 How much of the process could actually be mechanized ?  Part of it at
least is checking specific presentation rules, I believe.

  Another point is that copy editing can be paid for separately, by
authors (or institutions who can afford it) or by people who think
some pieces of works do deserve it.

  To me, the major characteristic of the Internet era (as opposed to
the Gutenberg era) is that we can ignore the process sequentiality
that the cost of publication and the inflexibility of the medium was
imposing on us.
  We can publish first, and review or copy edit later, in whatever
order is convenient, or never if no one wishes to do it.  I do not
care if, when, and how reviewing has been done ...  all I need to know
is whether it has been done, and by whom or what group, and maybe even
have the comments.
   With that I am a big enough boy to make my own decisions.  Choosing
a journal is just choosing a set of reviewers.  Why should I do it
before I know what papers I'll be looking for.  Why not consider a
bunch of papers and then decide which types of reviews I'll consider
adequate  (for example depending on how selective I need be).
   And why should papers have only one type of reviewing, when they
are so many different publics with different needs,  even within the
not for profit litterature.

  for more  ... 2 slides in French:

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/ecrits/Exposes/Bruxelles-Egov/papierg.htm
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/ecrits/Exposes/Bruxelles-Egov/papieri.htm

Bernard



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Re: The Ultimate Danger of SkyReading/Writing

[Bernard Lang]

So what ...

 do both ... let librarians and people do the archiving.

  and stop considering that people are too stupid to find information
to assess the value of what they read.
  Actually there are easy and varied means to do the refereeing
process.  Post-Gutenberg refereeing, mind you... i.e. decoupled from
the publishing.   The technology is already operational.

  And if publishers are such reliable people... I do wish to have some
books reimbursed ... they were published, heavily advertised, and are
crap.

Sorry no time for gentle words...

Bernard Lang


On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 06:30:09PM +, Albert Henderson wrote:
> Stevan refuses to acknowledge that libraries are the
> free source of the refereed literature. When he floated
> his idea around 1990, publishers had little online and
> the library crisis propaganda campaign was still fresh.
>
> Today, major publishers have their journals online.
> To access them online, one must simply be joined to a
> decent library.
>
> In short, there is no need for self-archiving refereed
> articles, except perhaps as an author's way of
> responding to requests for "reprints."
>
> Moreover, authors lack the skills and training of
> publishers and librarians. There is no chance that _all_
> authors can be coaxed into 'archiving' _all_ their
> papers in an orderly fashion. Unruly contributions,
> including unrefereed drafts and quackery, will be the
> norm. More often, great lacunae in what we like to call
> the scientific record will be an intractable problem.
> The researcher who depends on author 'archives' will
> suffer.
>
>
> Albert Henderson
> Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
> <70244.1...@compuserve.com>

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Re: Copyright: Form, Content, and Prepublication Incarnations

[Bernard Lang]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 02:52:35PM +, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Chris Armstrong wrote:
>
> > the reason I do not usually enter into these discussions
> > with you is that you never reply except as a put-down...
> > You rarely add to a Socratic discourse, or so it seems to
> > me; only to a long list of didactic statements.
>
> Dear Chris,
>
> I apologize.
>
> Although it is obviously no excuse for hurting anyone's feelings, I
> think if my polemics have become increasingly impatient it is a
> cumulative consequence of the fact that I find myself still responding
> over and over to the very same prima facie worries (which I eventually
> compiled into the list of "Zeno's FAQs"). It seems that for every
> worrier I respond to, two more worriers pop up in their place! And this
> is still going on after 10 years and countless talks and papers and
> discussion lists.


welcome to the club ...

this symptom is unfortunately quite frequent on the web, and I have
seen it on several other lists, about other topics.

  Those people more often on the list become experts ... and they tend
to lose contact with less present members or beginners, or grow
impatient after repeating things too often.

  This is a phenomenon that seems a direct consequence of the type of
interactions and communities we have on the internet, and would be
worth investigating.

  FAQs were invented to alleviate the problem, but they are obviously
not a complete answer.
  Also, on a topic like this one, where opinion matters nearly as much
as objective facts, FAQs necessarily reflect the writer's opinions,
which may not be shared by all, and are thus not fully stisfactory
(may-be with sevral authors, and constrasting points of view ...)
   This last comment is no reflexion on Stevan's FAQ, which I think I
have not read :-)
  [ though I did read several of Stevan's papers ... ]

Bernard Lang


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Re: Reasons for freeing the primary research literature

[Bernard Lang]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2001 at 03:23:01PM -0400, Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
> 
> PS I heard a strange piece of news recently: a fellow apparently named Albert 
> Henderson has found himself incapacitated in some manner. I do not know the 
> exact cause, but what is clear is that his computer is spewing off a number 
> of messages from a fixed bank of statements, a bit like the mechanical Eve in 
> Villiers de l'Isle Adam's novel, L'Eve future. These statements, many of them 
> quite outrageous in their claims, and some actually funny, are found all over 
> the networks, a bit like the chinese cookies messages one finds on Unix 
> systems. I began to notice this phenomenon when I saw the same repetitious 
> claims recur regularly over this list.  The worst part is that he appears no 
> longer capable of stopping his computer.
> 
> Does any know how to help break the kind of infinite loop in which this 
> fellow's computer appears to be caught. If he is still capable of thinking, 
> he may be getting a little embarrassed by it all, and he might be very 
> grateful for such charitable help.
> 

Dear Jean-Claude,

  there has been some technical investigation of this strange
phenomenon.  Apparently no computer is at fault.  It seems to be a
software issue, a bug in mailing list management systems.  Somehow,
when mailing lists start criticizing corporate behavior, or
questionning the well-foundedness of ultra-capitalistic economy, or
even simply quoting the US constitution, the bug is activated, and
some drone list member starts spewing off outrageous statements, or
simply drown discussions with totally irrelevant statments regarding a
variety of issues, netiquette being one of the most common choices.
  These drone interventions are sometimes taking the place of an
actual living human being, even possibly a member of the list, and
sometimes (quite often actually) cannot be connectd to anyone real
other than an (aptly named) hotmail account.
  The phenomenon is observable on many lists that concern themselves
with non-conformant topics.
  Some people suspect that this is a result of the increasing
complexity of the network which induces the emergence of an obviously
still rudimentary form of artificial intelligence. The currently
increasing business bias of the Internet probably does the rest.

 Bernard Lang

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Re: FOS Newsletter Excerpts

[Bernard Lang]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 02:58:40PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Bernard Lang wrote:
>
> > I noticed that many people on this list seem genuinely afraid of
> > hurting the feelings of publishers. Stevan gave me that impression in
> > our latest exchange, to which I stopped replying because I had the
> > impression that his eagerness to defend publishers (in the classical
> > sense) was hiding facts I did not know about.
>
> No hidden facts. Just one very open one. It is possible to free the
> entire refereed journal corpus online (all 20,000+ journals, all
> 2,000,000+ articles annually), NOW, without asking or waiting for
> publishers to do anything at all.
>
> http://cogsci.sootn.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm


> Hence I think it is unnecessary and a waste of time and breath to
> fulminate against publishers, when there is something much more useful
> and effective that we could all be doing instead.

So, you probably should spare your own breath, trying to talk down
people who speculate about how things could be.
  You may say that things are irrelevant to this forum ... not that
they are wrong or that existing publishers do a good job, or that the
current system is adequate.  If you defend the current system, you
entitle everyone to attack it.

> Moreover, peer review is essential; it is what makes the refereed
> corpus a REFEREED corpus. Publishers currently implement peer review;
> it is an essential service; and there is no reason they should nto
> continue doing it, come what may.

   there you go again

I am not against peer review... only saying that
  1- commercial publishers are not needed for it.
  2- it could be organized differently on the internet as I suggested in my
 HTML pictures.

> So I see absolutely no value in publisher-baiting. It is neither
> fair nor useful.

  When publishers tell me they protect my copyrights, as Springer did,
I just think they are morons and want to laugh in their face (which I did).

  Furthermore, there is no such thing as being unfair to a corporation

  I do not have as many gripes with academic publishing.

> So, no hidden facts. Complete disclosure.

acknowledged

Bernard Lang

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Re: FOS Newsletter Excerpts

[Bernard Lang]

I support this request.

Please answer the questions.

   Bernard Lang

PS
   I noticed that many people on this list seem genuinely afraid of
hurting the feelings of publishers. Stevan gave me that impression in
our latest exchange, to which I stopped replying because I had the
impression that his eagerness to defend publishers (in the classical
sense) was hiding facts I did not know about.
  So there was really no point in arguing.

It is funny.  People seem a lot less worried when workers are laid off
than when a large corporations are pushed out because the have become
economic dinosaures.  Why be so concerned with the feelings of
corporations, they have none.

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 11:26:31AM +0100, Alan Story wrote:
> Michael:
>
> Instead of using emotive words like "shame" and "cynical", perhaps you might
> address the issues I have raised:
>
> a) who is actually doing the giving?
> b) the "free now, charge later" philosophy behind this scheme.
> c) use of non proprietary/open source software for accessing the materials
> d) financial assistance for academic contributors from countries of the
> South.
>
> To use your own emotive, I just don't see the "sacrifice" involved.
>
> Regards
> Alan
>
> Alan Story
> Kent Law School
> University of Kent
> Canterbury Kent U.K
> CT2 7NS.
> a.c.st...@ukc.ac.uk
> 44 (0)1227 823316
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Michael Kay" 
> To: "'Alan Story'" ;
> 
> Cc: "Istvan Rev" ; "Anna Maria Balogh" 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 11:11 AM
> Subject: Re: FOS Newsletter Excerpts
>
>
> > It is a shame that you should write this in such a cynical tone.  Yes the
> > publishers do stand to gain in the long term, but at last they are willing
> > to "sacrifice" something at least .  I have been working with them for
> some
> > time on exactly these sorts of projects and they do realise that unless
> they
> > do something to "look better" that their battle will be even harder.
> > Naturally they are more than concerned about the current debate and their
> > futures. But at the end of the day, they are now coughing with excellent
> > deals for countries that our network serves - the financially
> disadvantaged.
> > And just for the record not all publishers are inherently evil people -
> > believe it or not.
> >
> > Michael Kay
> > Director eIFL  (Soros Foundation Network)
> > http://www.eifl.net
> >
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Re: PostGutenberg Copyrights and Wrongs for Give-Away Research

[Bernard Lang]

I have two slides that summarize the technical view I develop below.
They are unfortunately only in French:

Publication Scientifique Traditionnelle
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/ecrits/Exposes/Bruxelles-Egov/papierg.htm

Publication Scientifique numérisée
http://pauillac.inria.fr/~lang/ecrits/Exposes/Bruxelles-Egov/papieri.htm

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 11:29:25PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> bl> why should the quality-control service be provided by publishers ?
> 
> Because they are providing it now. And there is nothing wrong with it
> (except the extras forcibly wrapped in with it).

"Because they are providing it now" is not an answer. My point is that
we have to reanalyze the system from scratch, to see what would be the
basic rules in the Internet world.

Referreeing is a function in itself, which is actually playing an
increasing role in many areas, largely because of the internet and its
dynamic interactive character, and in many guises. Typically, any site
that lists and criticizes products, web pages (for example to tell
whether it is obscene or violent, and how much), people, books
(amazon), or software componenets, is performing a refereeing task.

A whole referreeing technology is currently being developped (using
mathematical tools) because, of course, one as to assess the
credibility of the refereeing services, either from an absolute (as
much as that make sense) or from a personnal viewpoint.

So quality-control, or relevance to a given profile, will be more an
more a general form of service on the internet. Among other things it
will be applicable to scientific or litterary resources (paper, data,
...). It will be open to competition ... and publishing houses are
welcome to compete.

But I doubt it will be the source of very high income, especially for
those who are not willing to pay the referrees, since most of the
infrastructure can be mechanized.

> bl> My view is that they can provide it if they wish and manage to sell
> bl> it. But it can actually be provided by any individual, any
> bl> organization, who cares, for a fee or for free, with or without
> bl> competence.
> 
> Of course. But those who wish to free the refereed corpus would like to
> have it done with competence.

And the best way to ensure competence is to have open competition.

> bl> Of course, incompetent quality control will be known as such fast
> bl> enough. Since there can be multiple, competing, quality controls, the
> bl> better ones will emerge. And there can be quality control on the
> bl> quality control (like assessing the quality of journals). But in fact
> bl> a much more open and dynamic system that what we have now.
> 
> What's wrong with the quality control we have now? And wouldn't new
> quality-control methods have to be tested first? And what about the
> freeing of the 20,000 while we are waiting for the outcome of the
> test?

It does the job, more or less, with cliques, schools of thought, and
other human weaknesses.

But we all know that the current system is far from perfect. A
colleague of mine was barred from publication in a journal for nearly
ten years, because he had made public a scientific fraud by a member of
the editorial board. I once had to cover up for attempted unethical
publishing so as to protect the victim (who had agreed) from the risk
of further harassment by a powerful scientist.

Let's not kid ourselves, the system is adequate, but far from perfect.

> > > Then, if the day arrives when there is no longer any market for the
> > > OPTIONS (paid for by institutional S/L/P), then refereed-journal
> > > publishers can downsize to become providers of only the ESSENTIAL QC/C
> > > service, paid for by the author-institution out of 10% of its 100%
> > > annual windfall S/L/P savings.
> > 
> > why them ?
> 
> I don't understand? Why should it be the publishers who implement the
> quality control? Because they are the ones doing it already. And
> whoever does it is the "publisher".

this definition does not leave much room for discussion, does it ?

For me the publisher is the person who makes the work public. Not
necessarily the person who assess the value. The link between the two
is a Gutenberg era concept, due to economic constraints.

and still, I do not agree that the quality-control should be
centralized. Hence even your concept of publisher becomes somewhat
diluted.

> Why paid for by the
> author-institution? Because they would have the windfall savings of
> 100% out of which to pay the 10%. They are also the beneficiary (in
> research impact) of freed access.

I never said the service should not be paid ... I only meant that, as
far as I can tell, those who provide it, even now, are not what we call
publishers. And I doubt it is (or will be) that expensive
... but I may be wrong.

> I don't think journal publishers are villains,

no they are not ... well not any more than the silk workers in Lyon who
were being replaced by automatic weaving machines 2 centuries ago (I
guess 

Re: PostGutenberg Copyrights and Wrongs for Give-Away Research

[Bernard Lang]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 06:03:29PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Bernard Lang wrote:
>
> > publishers have outlived their economic usefulness, at least where
> > publication of scientific papers [is]... concerned.  Hence there is no
> > reason any money should be spent on them.
>
> I don't think this is correct.

I stand by my statement, see below.

> First of all, we are not speaking of all manner of publishing, by any
> means. Just the very minoritarian (but not insignificant) annual corpus
> of about 20,000 refereed journals.

which I sumarily took into account by restricting to "publication of
scientific papers" ... does that exceed the corpus you indicate ?

> Second, even for that corpus, it is not the case that its publishers
> have "outlived their economic usefulness." The publishers of these
> 20,000 refereed journals have two functions. They provide (1) a SERVICE
> (quality-control/certification [QC/C], consisting mainly of the
> implementation of peer review) and (2) a PRODUCT (the on-paper or
> on-line published draft).

agreed

> What has outlived its economic usefulness is the forcible COUPLING of
> these two functions, providing the quality-control service and the text
> product.

agreed

> The service is an ESSENTIAL one (if we are to have a REFEREED corpus at
> all). The product is merely an OPTION.

and why should the quality-control service be provided by publishers ?

My view is that they can provide it if they wish and manage to sell
it.  But it can actually be provided by any individual, any
organization, who cares, for a fee or for free, with or without
competence.
   Of course, incompetent quality control will be known as such fast
enough.  Since there can be multiple, competing, quality controls, the
better ones will emerge.  And there can be quality control on the
quality control (like assessing the quality of journals).  But in fact
a much more open and dynamic system that what we have now.

> The two -- the essentials and the options -- must be decoupled.
>
> Publishers are unlikely to decouple them voluntarily; and in any case,
> waiting around for publishers to do that is a waste of precious time
> (and of potential research impact for all those papers that are otherwise
> inaccessible to so many of their potential users, lodged behind the
> financial firewalls of subscription/license/pay-per-view: S/L/P).

probably, but not relevant to my point

.

> Then, if the day arrives when there is no longer any market for the
> OPTIONS (paid for by institutional S/L/P), then refereed-journal
> publishers can downsize to become providers of only the ESSENTIAL QC/C
> service, paid for by the author-institution out of 10% of its 100%
> annual windfall S/L/P savings.

why them ?

Bernard Lang


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Re: PostGutenberg Copyrights and Wrongs for Give-Away Research

[Bernard Lang]

  What libraries are spending is not the issue, nor whether they are
well managed.

  The issue is that publishers have outlived their economic
usefulness, at least where publication of scientific papers (how
quaint!) is concerned.
  Hence there is no reason any money should be spent on them.

   PERIOD

Bernard Lang


On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 04:20:39PM -0400, Albert Henderson wrote:
> on Thu, 28 Jun 2001 Stevan Harnad  wrote:
>
> > Unfortunately, Albert Henderson's suggestions are so repetitive and
> > predictable that they can be responded to by number. These responses
> > are themselves equally predictable (and a fortiori, repetitive), but
> > they differ from the points to which they are responses in that they
> > take the point into account, and advance the analysis one step further,
> > whereas alas Albert simply takes a step back every time, and simply
> > reiterates, without processing or reflecting on the substantive
> > responses he has received repeatedly -- indeed, without giving any sign
> > of their having entered his sensorium at all.
> >
> > Two algorithms will generate just about every point Albert keeps
> > making in this Forum (and the points both keep generating are just
> > plain incorrect):
> >
> > (1) The serials crisis is an artifact of (conspiratorial)
> > underfunding of libraries, and would be solved if this underfunding
> > were terminated. [Fallacy: No conspiracy; no underfunding; no funds
> > available or deliberately withheld.]
>
> Don't take my word for the underfunding of libraries.
> There is considerable literature documenting the underfunding
> of libraries after 1970: The Fry-White study (1975), National
> Enquiry on Scholarly Communication (1979); Richard Talbot (1984),
> ARL Serials Prices Project (1989); A M Cummings et al (1992);
> Okerson & Stubbs (1992) -- just to cite a few studies not
> including my own. [I will gladly provide full cites to anyone
> wishing for a depressing afternoon.]
>
> My own comparison of declining library spending with
> increased profitability -- well documented statistically
> -- suggests funds have been deliberately withheld. [I will
> gladly share my sources -- all published.]
>
> Who said "conspiracy?"  Please give us your source. If
> I were to choose a word, it would be "culture." Ironically,
> the "culture" of university administrators places a higher
> value on hoarding financial assets than it does on library
> collections. Here is a "culture," like the management
> culture pre-workers' compensation and fire safety laws, that
> relies on workers to take care of themselves. University
> managers are failing to meet their obligation to excellence
> in research and education.
>
>
> (2) Nothing relevant has changed since the Gutenberg [print on-paper
> dissemination] Era. [Fallacy: everything has changed; authors can now
> disseminate their REFEREED {sic} research for free for all, online, by
> self-archiving {sic}]
>
> Technology gave us another new tool a decade ago. No revolution
> need follow. The essentials of copyright and the social
> construction of science have not toppled. Nor will they.
>
> [snip]
>
> Have a nice weekend.
>
> Albert Henderson
> Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
> <70244.1...@compuserve.com>
>
> .
> .
> .

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Re: PubScience under threat

[Bernard Lang]

Is the content of PubSCIENCE public, I mean the whole database, not
just the access.

Can it be duplicated, or expanded somewhere else.

If not, can it be made public, if current maintainers can no longer do it.

Bernard Lang

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Re: Other Forms of Publishing?

[Bernard Lang]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 03:51:59PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> Joseph J. Esposito wrote in Nature's ongoing WebDebate:
>
> http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/webdebdata/index.html
>
> > I was formerly a publisher (CEO of Encyclopaedia Britannica) and now
> > work in the Napster-besotted world of Internet strategy consulting
> >
> > While it is only natural that the readers of Nature would direct their
> > comments to the world of scientific publishing, I would like to know if
> > any or all of the remarks posted to date are intended to have any
> > application to other areas of publishing. For example, it has been
> > suggested that all scientific papers be made available for free in a
> > publicly accessible digital archive six months after initial
> > publication. Should this apply to journals in the humanities as well?
> > And why stop at journals? What about college textbooks, K-12
> > supplementary materials, cookbooks, and Helen Fielding's latest? In
> > other words, what makes science journals different from all other
> > species of publishing when it comes to free public access (after a
> > limited period of time)?
>
> No. The motivation and justification and method for the "literature
> liberation movement" applies ONLY to the author give-away literature
> (chiefly, the 20,000 refereed research journals published annually).
>
> It does not, and should not, apply to author royalty/fee/salary-based
> writings at all (books, magazine/newspaper articles). To conflate the
> give-away and non-give-away literatures is to confuse and cloud the
> issue completely, and to miss the point:
>
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1


While I agree with this, I came across an interesting case.

The author wrote a very large manual regarding all issues of Internet
Programming ... maybe 1000 pages or more.  Which was published, and is
also available on the web.

  Then he asked to actually turn it into a free book (free as in
freedom), allowing anyone to republish it.  That, the publisher
refused, though he had already made his profit on the book.
  The interesting part is why the author wanted that.  The reason is
very simple: Internet programming evolves very quickly  and the
author could not afford keeping up with it.  He wanted to make the
book free in order to encourage others to keep it up-to-date, in the
spirit of free software.  As it is now, the book is dying... a pity.


side remark:
  regarding the supposed role of publishers for proper selection of
what ought to be published, I wish there was a law allowing me to
return books for reimbursement whenever I let myself be abused by
massive advertising on totally, and visibly, and obviously incompetent
work, both in content and style.  I mean that even a technically
incompetent publisher could not have been abused.
   I have come to trust far more the open information I can collect on
the Internet regarding the worth of written contribution than anything
I read in the written press.
   Though this is not directly related to scientific publishing, I am
beginning to wonder ...

Cordialement

Bernard Lang

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