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

[Gabriel Scherer]

I strongly agree with Peter: the most effective action against unreasonable
publishing models is to not participate in them. We are very fortunate to
work in a community where many sensible Open Access venues exist, so that
this decision comes at little to no personal cost.

I created a webpage to document this policy (tentatively named "Keeping my
work Open"). To evaluate the impact on my work since I started applying it
in 2017, I listed venues to which I did or did not participate due to the
policy.

  http://gasche.info/open_access.html

The summary is that this principle is not limiting: most venues in
Programming Languages research have sensible policies (I include PACMPL,
thanks to the generous support of SIGPLAN to fund APCs, and ETAPS since
2018), and that the Closed Access venues I encountered had fairly direct
replacements in all cases.

On Sun, Dec 22, 2019 at 7:37 AM <selinger at mathstat.dal.ca> wrote:

> 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.
> > >
> >
> >
>
>