[TYPES] Open Access petition to the ACM - please sign!

[selinger at mathstat.dal.ca]

Dear Roberto,

thanks for this reference. I agree with your proposition that some
work is needed to ensure that open access thrives in the long run. In
fairness, though, I don't think the issues of open access publishing
and open source software are quite analogous.

The economic difference between open source software and proprietary
software, and the source of the problems this article points out, is
that people developing open source software typically volunteer their
time, whereas people developing proprietary software are typically
paid.

In the publishing world, there is no such difference. The editors and
referees of open access journals are unpaid; the editors and referees
of closed access journals are also unpaid (except in some cases for a
small pro-forma honorarium to the editor in chief). The extra revenue
the ACM and other publishers are collecting does not go towards
supporting the people who do most of the work of publishing. Neither
does it typically go towards funding the underlying research.

I signed the petition. Since the ACM has less than 100,000 members,
only 1,000 signatures are required to trigger a vote.

Best, -- Peter

Roberto Di Cosmo wrote:
> 
> [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
> 
> Dear Joathan,
>      thanks for sharing this: it is an important step forward to make our voices heard, and I've been delighted to sign it!
> 
> We need to take quite a few steps, though, on the still long path to set up a sustainable infrastructure for the research publishing workflow that can last on the long term, and avoid the pitfalls we have often fall into when engaging in Open Source (see  https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ for a "nice" museum of horrors :-))
> 
> I'll try to share some thoughts on this in the coming days
> 
> Cheers
> 
> --
> Roberto
> 
> On Sun, Jan 05, 2020 at 05:06:05PM -0500, Jonathan Aldrich wrote:
> > [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ]
> > 
> > All,
> > 
> > Robert Rand, after conversations with a number of us in a Facebook group,
> > has put together a petition to the ACM about open access.  It's clear that
> > many people on Types are passionate about this...if you are an ACM member,
> > I encourage you to join me in signing it!
> > 
> > https://www.change.org/p/association-for-computing-machinery-acm-support-open-access
> > 
> > 
> > The petition asks ACM to remove its signature from the letter that opposed
> > the proposed US open access policy, and asks for a vote of the membership
> > on making the ACM digital library all open access, with any fees based on
> > publication cost only.   If 1% of ACM members sign, then ACM's constitution
> > (article 6) says that they must put the text in italics to a vote of the
> > membership.
> > 
> > The full text of the petition is below.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Jonathan
> > 
> > 
> > As members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) we were
> > disappointed to see the ACM sign onto a letter opposing a US government
> > policy to require the free distribution of all federally funded research.
> > As computer scientists, we are committed to the principles of Open Source,
> > which promotes universal access to software, and Open Science, in which
> > scientific research is both transparent and publicly accessible. When
> > research funded by public agencies is signed away to private organizations
> > and embargoed by them, it makes a mockery of these principles.
> > 
> > As such, we demand that the ACM immediately withdraw its signature from the
> > letter to the US government. Moreover, we ask that the following proposal
> > be put to a vote of the general ACM membership:
> > 
> > *The Association for Computing Machinery shall release all papers in the
> > ACM digital library, past and future, under fully open access terms within
> > five years. Moreover, it shall ensure that any charges for publication,
> > whether to authors, conference attendees or institutions, should be no more
> > than the cost of publishing the papers themselves.*
> > 
> > We further encourage the leadership of the ACM to take concrete steps
> > towards Open Access immediately, in line with its stated purpose of
> > fostering the open interchange of information.
> 
> -- 
> Roberto Di Cosmo
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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           
> ------------------------------------------------------------------                                                 
> GPG fingerprint 2931 20CE 3A5A 5390 98EC 8BFC FCCA C3BE 39CB 12D3                        
>