[GOAL] Re: Meaning of Open Access

Wed May 9 13:15:30 BST 2012

On 2012-05-09, at 8:02 AM, David Prosser wrote:

>> Over-reaching, and carping about definitions and ideals, and
>> especially preaching that continuing no-OA is preferable to low-bar-OA
>> is just what is keeping us treading water year upon year, instead of
>> flooding the planet (irreversibly) with the Green Gratis OA that we
>> could already have.
> 
> I don't think that there is a shred of evidence to support the thesis
> that we would have 100% green gratis OA today if only nobody
> had mentioned full OA.  

No one has said that. Just that we should reach for what it within
our grasp rather than over-reaching and getting next to nothing.

> And suggesting that anybody is preaching 'continued no-OA is
> preferable to low-bar-OA' is a rather disingenuous misrepresentation
> of the position of those of us who support full OA take.

I quote from Jan Velterop:
> JV: So by all means, let legal measures play a role, but not at the expense of 
> lowering the bar to 'gratis' OA. If one believes in mandates, then there is 
> no reason why BOAI-compliant OA ('libre' in your lingo) should not be 
> mandated.
Stevan Harnad

> 
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 9 May 2012, at 12:53, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> 
>> No, mandated Green Gratis OA cannot be prevented or "rescinded" by publishers
>> (and publishers are well aware of that -- it is researchers who are
>> naive about it).
>> 
>> On the contrary, the more OA we have, the harder it is to retard or resist it:
>> the change is optimal, self-reinforcing, and irreversible:
>> 
>> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
>> 
>> Please, please let's stop being so short-sighted. The reason it is so
>> important to lower barriers and grasp what is within reach
>> (universally mandated Green, Gratis OA) is that that is what will
>> bring us all the other good things we also seek (Libre OA, Gold OA,
>> copyright reform).
>> 
>> Over-reaching, and carping about definitions and ideals, and
>> especially preaching that continuing no-OA is preferable to low-bar-OA
>> is just what is keeping us treading water year upon year, instead of
>> flooding the planet (irreversibly) with the Green Gratis OA that we
>> could already have.
>> 
>> Stevan Harnad
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 6:37 AM, Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> ** Cross-Posted **
>>> 
>>> On 2012-05-09, at 4:12 AM, Jan Velterop wrote:
>>> 
>>> I would favour doing away with both the terms 'libre OA' and 'gratis OA'.
>>> 
>>> Open Access suffices. It's the 'open' that says it all. Especially if it is
>>> made
>>> 
>>> clear that OA means BOAI-compliant OA in the context of scholarly
>>> 
>>> research literature.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I don't doubt that Jan would like to do away with the terms libre and gratis
>>> OA.
>>> He has been arguing all along that free online access is not open access,
>>> ever since 2003 on the American Scientist Open Access Forum:
>>> 
>>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#msg6478
>>> 
>>> This would mean that my "subversive proposal" of 1994 was not really a
>>> proposal for open access  and that the existing open access mandates
>>> and policies of funders and institutions worldwide are not really open
>>> access
>>> mandates or policies.
>>> http://roarmap.eprints.org/
>>> 
>>> It is in large part for this reason that in 2008 Peter Suber and I proposed
>>> the terms "gratis" and "libre" open access to ensure that the term
>>> "open access" retained its meaning, and to make explicit the two
>>> distinct conditions involved: free online access (gratis OA) and
>>> certain re-use rights (libre OA):
>>> 
>>> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/04/strong-and-weak-oa.html
>>> 
>>> For Peter Murray-Rust's crusade for journal article text-mining rights,
>>> apart from reiterating my full agreement that these are highly important
>>> and highly desirable and even urgent in certain fields, I would like
>>> to note that -- as PM-R has stated -- neither gratis OA nor libre OA
>>> is necessary for the kinds of text-mining rights he is seeking. They
>>> can be had via a special licensing agreement from the publisher.
>>> 
>>> There is no ambiguity there: The text-mining rights can be granted
>>> even if the articles themselves are not made openly accessible,
>>> free for all.
>>> 
>>> And, as Richard Poynder has just pointed out, publishers are
>>> quite aware of (perhaps even relieved with) this option, with
>>> Elsevier lately launching an experiment in it:
>>> 
>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000433.html
>>> 
>>> This makes it clear that the text-mining rights PM-R seeks can be
>>> had without either sort of OA, gratis or libre...
>>> 
>>> Let us hope the quest for Open Access itself is not derailed in this
>>> direction.
>>> 
>>> Stevan Harnad
>>> 
>>> On 9 May 2012, at 08:30, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 3:23 PM, Jan Velterop <velterop at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> JV> So by all means, let legal measures play a role, but not at the
>>>> expense of lowering the bar to 'gratis' OA. If one believes in mandates,
>>>> then there is no reason why BOAI-compliant OA ('libre' in your [SH] lingo)
>>>> should not be mandated.
>>>> 
>>> I'd like to suggest that the term "libre OA" be dropped. "Gratis OA" implies
>>> freedom for anyone to read the manuscript somewhere. "Libre OA" imlies the
>>> "removal of some permission barriers" but neither says which or how many.
>>> Since Gratis OA has already required the removal of one permission barrier
>>> (the permission being granted to post on the web, permanently) it can be
>>> argued that all Gratis OA is ipso facto Libre OA.
>>> 
>>> This renders the term Unnecessary and confusiing, and allows many people and
>>> organizations to imply they are granting rights and permissions beyond
>>> GratisOA when they are not. If there are current examples where the use of
>>> "libreOA" plays a useful role it would be useful to see them.
>>> 
>>> The only terms that make operational sense and are clear are Gratis OA and
>>> BOAI-compliant OA . It is a pity that the latter is a long phrase and maybe
>>> its usage will contract the phrase.
>>> 
>>> I would be grateful for clear discourse on these definitions and the
>>> suggestion of retiring "libreOA".
>>> 
>>> P.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Peter Murray-Rust
>>> Reader in Molecular Informatics
>>> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
>>> University of Cambridge
>>> CB2 1EW, UK
>>> +44-1223-763069
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> GOAL mailing list
>>> GOAL at eprints.org
>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>>> 
>>> 
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