RE: Equitable Mathematics

["Marta Bunge" <martabunge@hotmail.com>]

The idea which Andre Joyal has put forward is certainly original, although
it may not be that practical or someone would have thought of it before?.
However, there may be a way to implement it and I am all for it.

I would extend the list to include, in additon to Topology, also Advances in
Mathematics, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, and Journal of Pure and
Applied Algebra. Maybe others where some of us belong to the editorial
boards.

It so happens that the journals listed above are all published by
Reed-Elsevier. A few (foolish?) academics have pledged not to publish in
such journals for a different, and in my view, a much more serious, reason
-- namely, the involment with arms dealers.  The latter affects human lives,
whereas the former "just" makes it difficult to access scientific
informatin, particularly in Third World countries.

http://cage.ugent.be/~npg/elsevier/signatories.html

A similar pledge to target all highly-priced journals would make little
difference to some of us who have signed the above, but could mean
scientific suicide to others. In addition, we do (naively, perhaps) expect
to exert enough influence with this and other demarches going on right now
(such as a planned letter in the Times), so that we are relieved of the
pledge soon enough. If not, well.....there is always TAC and other
electronic journals listed in the excellent note by John Baez (which can
also be seen in the above website looking at comments by signataries).

Something must be done. That much is clear.

Marta

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