[TYPES] Types-list Digest, Vol 121, Issue 8
Valeria de Paiva
valeria.depaiva at gmail.com
Wed Dec 25 09:58:09 EST 2019
dear all,
I'd like to add my 2 cents to this thread, replying to this bit of
Roberto's message.
>On the one hand, it created a gigantic legacy problem: even if we all
started
publishing Open Access today, what about the hundreds of thousands of
articles
published over the past decades, that are still behind a paywall?
II would like to volunteer the information that the ACL the Association for
Computational Linguistics
https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/
did exactly this. It made all the articles in their main conferences free
and open access; and then they went back and
digitalized and open-sourced their past! they made the already published
papers also open source.
Now if the computational linguists can do it, I fail to see why we cannot.
To me, it seems a lack of will from our learned societies. But I don't know
the numbers, of course.
Happy holidays!
Valeria
On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 1:28 AM <types-list-request at lists.seas.upenn.edu>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: In a letter to the US White House, (Robert Rand)
> 2. Re: In a letter to the US White House, (Gabriel Scherer)
> 3. Open Access: a bit of background (Was: Re: In a letter to
> the US White House, ACM opposes free distribution of
> peer-reviewed journal articles) (Roberto Di Cosmo)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:11:42 -0500
> From: Robert Rand <rnrand at gmail.com>
> To: Peter Selinger <selinger at mathstat.dal.ca>
> Cc: Types list <types-list at lists.seas.upenn.edu>
> Subject: Re: [TYPES] In a letter to the US White House,
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAGKXo9deS4hC+Nj_anQ9de3nZ4KfH53Mg6bAPpOhhvgKtadHkw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> I agree with Peter and Gabriel. The ACM seems intent on charging the same
> amount per article and just shifting around who pays for it: from readers
> to authors to conference-goers to (in their newest scheme) universities as
> part of some sort of general tax. And we shouldn't be paying it.
>
> I would add that for publishing conference proceedings, EPTCS (which
> publishes the conference proceedings for Linearity, ICLP, QPL and dozens of
> other conferences) is a great option. EPTCS is free to everyone, and it
> would be nice if more programming languages conferences switched to using
> it.
>
> On Sun, Dec 22, 2019 at 12:38 PM <selinger at mathstat.dal.ca> wrote:
>
> > [ The Types Forum,
> http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list
> > ]
> >
> > 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 pay? unreasonable
> > > > Gold Access author processing charges (APCs)?
> > > >
> > > > ?: 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.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2019 16:28:35 +0100
> From: Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer at gmail.com>
> To: Peter Selinger <selinger at mathstat.dal.ca>
> Cc: Jonathan Aldrich <jonathan.aldrich at cs.cmu.edu>, Types list
> <types-list at lists.seas.upenn.edu>
> Subject: Re: [TYPES] In a letter to the US White House,
> Message-ID:
> <CAPFanBGKj=
> EOhoj9w1tUWMOHBrFSEfnoT4ri6L+HtmhtymUMww at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> 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 pay? unreasonable
> > > > Gold Access author processing charges (APCs)?
> > > >
> > > > ?: 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.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2019 18:21:38 +0100
> From: Roberto Di Cosmo <roberto at dicosmo.org>
> To: Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer at gmail.com>, Types list
> <types-list at lists.seas.upenn.edu>
> Subject: [TYPES] Open Access: a bit of background (Was: Re: In a
> letter to the US White House, ACM opposes free distribution of
> peer-reviewed journal articles)
> Message-ID: <20191224172138.GC32219 at traveler>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Dear all,
> I'd like to contribute to this very interesting thread by offering
> some
> background on the Open Acces debate, that started almost a quarter of a
> century
> ago, and that may help younger collegues to get an idea of why we ended up
> where we are today.
>
> It's important to recall that, no matter the official statements one can
> read
> here and there, the goals of researchers on one side, and traditional
> scientific
> publishers on the other, *have always been quite different*: researchers
> wanted
> access to publications as broad and efficient as possible, and a means to
> signal
> excellence of their work; publishers wanted to run a healthy business, and
> a
> monopoly on their own areas (via mandatory copyright transfer and
> ownership of
> the publication trademarks).
>
> It just turns out that in the pre-Internet era what publishers offered also
> satisfied the goals of researchers: the difficult divorce started some
> twenty
> years ago, with the generalisation of the Internet, when sharing papers on
> the
> Web became a *more efficient* means of distibution than having copies of
> journals or proceedings sent to thousands of libraries all over the world,
> and
> the publishers' own goals started to become an obstacle to the free
> dissemination of science.
>
> Unfortunately, before this divorce started, northern emisphere researchers
> (*), as
> well as funding agencies, had broadly agreed to the conditions imposed by
> publishers, in particular mandatory transfer to them of exclusive
> copyright,
> which were not necessary to achieve the researcher's goals.
>
> This had quite disastrous consequences.
>
> On the one hand, it created a gigantic legacy problem: even if we all
> started
> publishing Open Access today, what about the hunderds of thousands of
> articles
> published over the past decades, that are still behind a paywall?
>
> On the other hand, and maybe even worse, it accustomed all the players
> (including governments and funding agencies) to accept the idea that the
> publishing houses actually *own* the copyright to the articles we write,
> while
> they actually *extort* this copyright from the authors themselves, by
> forcing
> them to relinquish their rights in order to be published, a provision that
> is in
> direct violation of the spirit of copyright itself (in France, it is
> actually in
> violation of the letter of copyright law, see article L.131-4 of the CPI).
>
> You can find a trace of this line of thinking in the wording used in the
> letter
> that started this whole thread, where it mentions "intellectual property"
> that belongs to the publishers.
>
> A broader and longer analysis of what is at stake can be found in this
> early
> account I wrote 15 years ago, when some of us had the illusion that Open
> Access
> was going to win soon :
>
> Scientific Publications: The Role of Public Administrations in The ICT
> Era, Upgrade, 2006
> + available at: http://www.dicosmo.org/FSP/FATOS-Upgrade-03-2006.pdf
> + french original version available at
> http://www.dicosmo.org/FSP/FreeAccessToScience.pdf
>
> Cheers
>
> --
> Roberto
>
> (*) in Latin America the situation is quite different
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Computer Science Professor
> (on leave at INRIA from IRIF/University Paris Diderot)
>
> Director
> Software Heritage https://www.softwareheritage.org
> INRIA
> Bureau C328 E-mail : roberto at dicosmo.org
> 2, Rue Simone Iff Web page : http://www.dicosmo.org
> CS 42112 Twitter : http://twitter.com/rdicosmo
> 75589 Paris Cedex 12 Tel : +33 1 80 49 44 42
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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> ------------------------------
>
> End of Types-list Digest, Vol 121, Issue 8
> ******************************************
>
--
Valeria de Paiva
http://vcvpaiva.github.io/
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~vdp/
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