[TYPES] In a letter to the US White House, ACM opposes free distribution of peer-reviewed journal articles

[Stefan Monnier]

> It feels a bit facile to bash the ACM for signing onto this letter.
> The letter does not mean that they oppose making publications freely
> available; in fact, I believe open access is a goal for ACM.

I understand it and I would not fault ACM for opposing that new legislation
(although I think it's short sighted: those rules would impose
restriction to the publication-market which would likely play in favor
of actors like ACM compared to more commercially minded players).

But I find the letter's tone and content appalling: they should have
sent *another* letter if they wanted to oppose the legislation.
The ends don't justify the means.

This event seems to be a good opportunity to increase pressure on the
ACM to change its model, but I think we should do so in 2 separate steps
(not necessarily sequential), one being about retracting the signature
from that unacceptable letter, and the other about changing the aim from
"expensive Gold Open Access" to a cheaper form of it (which will likely
require a redesign, e.g. to distinguish "access to the DL" from "access
to individual articles": a $100 author publishing fee could cover the
cost of maintaining a plain archive of PDFs, while access to the richer
DL and related services could be limited to ACM members (and
institutions paying for the service, typically via their library)).


        Stefan