[TYPES] In a letter to the US White House,

[selinger at mathstat.dal.ca]

I was recently invited to the editorial board of a new ACM journal. I
refused to become an editor, on the grounds that the journal is not
open access.

I feel that as editors, we volunteer our time, and I have decided to
do so only for journals that are truly open access.  And by "open
access", I do not mean some "gold" model based on author charges
(currently $1300-$1700 per ACM journal article, see
https://www.acm.org/publications/openaccess). I mean journals that are
free for both authors and readers.

There are already many such journals, and they are usually
community-run. Examples include Logical Methods in Computer Science
(https://lmcs.episciences.org/), Compositionality
(https://www.compositionality-journal.org/), and Quantum
(https://quantum-journal.org/). There is relatively little in the way
of interested groups of individuals starting new such journals.

I think the best way to get rid of unreasonable publishing models is
not to participate in them.

-- Peter

Jonathan Aldrich wrote:
> 
> 
> [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
> 
> I agree with Gabriel.  Furthermore, I think we should do something.
> 
> On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 8:54 AM Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list
> > ]
> >
> > Dear types-list and SIGPLAN,
> >
> > I have long been of the opinion that our scientific publications
> > should be Open Access, and that editors should not request more than
> > a fair price (cost of publication, which Dasgtuhl estimates at $60
> > per article). In particular, I believe that copyright transfer
> > agreements, as imposed by most editors including the ACM, is deeply
> > unethical: the publishers are not the authors of our scientific
> > production and they should not force us to give our copyright to
> > them. A non-exclusive publishing agreement should be enough.
> >
> > Whether or not you agree with this position, you may be interested in
> > the content of the following letter to the US White House that
> > a coalition of scientific publishers, *including the ACM*, signed and
> > support.
> >
> >
> >
> > https://presspage-production-content.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/1508/coalitionletteropposinglowerembargoes12.18.2019-581369.pdf
> >   press release from the coalition of editors:
> >
> > https://newsroom.publishers.org/researchers-and-publishers-oppose-immediate-free-distribution-of-peer-reviewed-journal-articles
> >
> > (This letter was written in the context of a proposed US legislation
> > to force more scientists to publish their work in Fair Open Access
> > venues. I haven't been able to find a precise link to a discussion of
> > this proposed legislation.)
> >
> > The following parts of the letter co-signed by the ACM are
> > particularly juicy:
> >
> > > [We] have learned that the Administration may be preparing to step
> > > into the private marketplace and force the immediate free distribution
> > > of journal articles financed and published by organizations in the
> > > private sector, including many non-profits. This would effectively
> > > nationalize the valuable American intellectual property that we
> > > produce and force us to give it away to the rest of the world for
> > > free.
> >
> > > This mandate [...] would make it very difficult for most American
> > > publishers to invest in publishing these articles. As a consequence,
> > > it would place increased financial responsibility on the government
> > > through diverted federal research grant funds or additional monies
> > > to underwrite the important value added by publishing. In the coming
> > > years, this cost shift would place billions of dollars of new and
> > > additional burden on taxpayers.
> >
> > In my discussion with many of us, I regularly hear that the ACM is
> > "not evil" (the SIGPLAN, of course, is pure good!) and that placating
> > its weird views (for example, that it really does cost $700 or $900 to
> > publish an article as Open Source) is good for our research
> > community. It do not see how this argument is compatible with the ACM
> > signing this letter.
> >
> > I believe that many of our activities, which we collectively trained
> > ourselves to see as harmless administrative details of our research
> > work, are in fact empowering the ACM to make those claims. Should we
> > accept to give away our copyright, or pay¹ unreasonable
> > Gold Access author processing charges (APCs)?
> >
> > ¹: The SIGPLAN decision to cover APC costs for PACMPL articles is
> > shielding many of us from paying APCs. But many of the smaller
> > conferences, symposiums or workshops in our community whose
> > proceedings are handled by the ACM are still limited to "pay
> > $900" (or "pay $25 per page") as the only Open Access option, with
> > copyright transfer as the only free choice, which is effectively
> > keeping those proceedings Closed-Access.
> >
> 
>