From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7178 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Chemouil Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Gowers petition against Elsevier Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:04:53 +0100 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: David Chemouil NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1327860548 8170 80.91.229.3 (29 Jan 2012 18:09:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:09:08 +0000 (UTC) To: Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Sun Jan 29 19:09:07 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.4]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RrZBU-0005p5-G8 for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:09:00 +0100 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:38337) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1RrZAe-0007rZ-Aa; Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:08:08 -0400 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RrZAe-0007BX-6N for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:08:08 -0400 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7178 Archived-At: [ Note from moderator: While interesting, this thread is off-topic and list policy does not allow for discussion. Posts sent after tomorrow will not be forwarded. Thanks. ] Dear colleagues, although this petition may be useful, I think there is much more to be=20 done here. For the time being, it is quite difficult to boycott any commercial=20 publisher unless you are an experienced sommit=C3=A9 in your domain. For=20 instance, PhD students need to publish in highly-rated journals or=20 conferences, which are almost always associated to a publisher like=20 Elsevier or Springer. To fight this situation, and as in the case of the=20 free software movement, the best strategy is in my view to develop a=20 high-quality alternative to commercial scientific publishing. For=20 instance, the said sommit=C3=A9s could join (or create) programme and edi= ting=20 committees of journals and conferences publishing only under a=20 totally-open access scheme (i.e gratis for authors and readers, as well=20 as under a "free" licence, such as the Creative Commons - Attribution -=20 Share-Alike licence). As a matter of fact, as most know, this is already=20 the case with publications such as TAC or LMCS and with conferences=20 relying on the EPTCS proceedings. Besides, it is easy to setup a site as=20 an ArXiv overlay to rely on the long-lastingness of this publication=20 platform. In ten years or so, with such committees and a good editing=20 policy, such journals or conferences will be as well ranked as=20 commercial ones. However the subscription to the Elsevier or Springer electronic library=20 will be needed for a long time, just to be able to get digitized=20 versions of papers from the second half of the last century. This is a=20 second, trickier, battlefield in the sense that the figth here must be=20 carried on the copyright front. First, the copyright now extends far too=20 long after the author's death. Secondly, some publishers, when=20 digitizing some work, state wrongly that they perform a creative step,=20 which prolongs their copyright by "resetting" the creation date. Here,=20 the fight can almost only be solved by advocating politicians. All the best dc --=20 David Chemouil Onera - DTIM Tel./fax: +33 (0) 5 6225 2936 / 2593 [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]