[GOAL] Definition of OA and its Priorities and Obstacles, for Peter Murray-Rust

[Stevan Harnad]

On 2012-08-28, at 4:26 AM, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

Warning: I shall get shouted down for this post.
>
> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
>  wrote:
>
> "OA means free online access."
>
> When and where and by whom was this decided? It is incompatible with the
> BBB definitions.
> One of the problems of "Open Access" as a movement is that the terms used
> (in the period after BBB) are so poorly defined as to be essentially
> meaningless - Humpty-Dumpty ("  "When *I* use a word," Humpty Dumpty
> said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to
> mean—neither more nor less.").
>
> Peter, you will not get shouted down -- but it would be a great help if
you were to listen, because you have asked and been given this information
now countless times.

There have been updates of the BBB definition of OA, which was drafted in
early days and has since seen a decade of developments not envisioned or
anticipated in 2002:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre

1. Free online access is Gratis OA.

2. Free online access plus (some) re-use rights is Libre OA.

3. Gratis OA is a necessary condition for Libre OA.

4. Over sixty percent of journals already endorse immediate, un-embargoed
Green Gratis OA.

5. In addition, about 40% more endorse Green Gratis OA after an embargo of
6-12 months.

6. Global Gratis Green OA is within reach of Green OA mandates (ID/OA +
"Almost-OA" Button)

7. Libre OA is not within reach: publishers must be paid extra for it, in
the form of Libre Gold OA fees, over and above the subscription fees
already being paid by institutions worldwide.

8. All researchers, in all disciplines, want and need access to all
refereed research, not just the journals their institutions can afford to
subscribe to, i.e., Gratis OA.

9. Not all researchers, in all disciplines, want and need to provide re-use
rights (Libre OA).

10. Hence Green Gratis OA is the overwhelmingly first and foremost priority.

11. Once Green Gratis OA is globally mandated by institutions and funders,
Libre OA (and Gold OA) will follow as a natural matter of course.

12. Your field, chemistry, would greatly benefit from Libre OA, but it is
also the field whose publishers are the most dead-set against OA, whether
Gratis or Libre.

13. Your field, chemistry, like all other fields, would also greatly
benefit from Gratis OA, so all researchers have access to all refereed
research.

14. First things first.

15. The reason you get shouted down is that you keep putting the particular
additional needs of your discipline ahead of the generic access needs of
all disciplines.

16. The "A" in OA stands for access; the OA movement is not the Open
License movement (though it will help the OL movement along).


(Yes, Jan Velterop, for reasons of his own, also much debated in this
Forum, has relentlessly insisted that substantive, strategic and pragmatic
matters can somehow be settled by treating the BBB definition as if it had
been Holy Writ rather than Mortal Improvisation, and as if nothing had been
learned since 2002. Yes, that is at best BBB pedantry, and at worst BBB
fetishism, but it certainly is not advancing the interests of all the
researchers in the world, who want and need free online access but do not
yet have it, in part because of BBB fetishism. Peter Murray-Rust, at least,
has a discipline-specific reason for his impatience for Libre OA -- though
he has no realistic means of reaching it before Gratis OA. Jan Velterop
seems to be a BBB fundamentalist for ideological reasons. Jan will have to
be patient, unless he comes up with a concrete and realistic strategy for
reaching universal Libre OA faster than universal Green Gratis OA mandates.
And -- before you ask -- Finch/RCUK is most definitely not that realistic
scenario. It is a fiasco in the making, unless -- as I fervently hope -- it
will still be wisely revised to correct its fatal flaws:
http://digital-research.oerc.ox.ac.uk/programme/tues-am-keynote  )

Stevan Harnad
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