[GOAL] Re: libre vs open - general language issues

[Stevan Harnad]

Dear Mr Pettiaux,

I seem to have been archivangelizing for almost as long as you have been
teaching.

If there is one thing I can say with near-certainty it is that the slow
progress toward green and (fair) gold OA has not been because of their
names, nor because of their complexity, because it is all exceedingly
simple (but not if it is conflated with other preconceptions):

The analogies with the free/open software movement are outweighed by the
disanalogies:

1. OA is primarily about journal articles.

2. Journal articles do not consist of executable code but of text.

3. Unlike proprietary software, the *content* of journal articles is, and
always was, open.

4. It's just that you have to pay to *access* the content, because access
to the proprietary *text* is not free.

5. Nor is the text "open" in the sense of re-publication, re-use, mash-up
rights.

6. Gratis OA seeks to make the text free.

7. Libre OA seeks to make the text open.

Best regards,
Stevan Harnad

1. Green OA means *OA provided by the author* (usually by self-archiving
> the refereed, revised, accepted final draft in an OA repository)

2. Gold OA means OA *provided by the journal* (often for a publication fee)

3. Gratis OA means free online access.

4. Libre OA means Gratis OA plus various re-use rights

... OA is about access, not about funding mechanisms (of which there are
> three: subscription fee, publication fee, or subsidy [the latter not to be
> confused with "gratis"])

After at least a decade and a half I think it would be a good idea to stop
> fussing about what to call it, and focus instead on providing it...

Stevan Harnad,

Erstwhile Archivangelist


On Aug 17, 2015, at 12:36 PM, Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas at pettiaux.be> wrote:

Dear Mr Harnad,
> It has taken me some days, even though I had been gently warned, to digest
> your mail and to compose a response.
> Without any doubt, you have been an important and long time actor of and
> around open access. I am indeed a newcomer to this list, but not completely
> a newcomer to the subject.
> I admit that I know much better free software (and have learned and don't
> like the very confusing words "open source software" that I never use ...
> partly becaue I can always say that in case of doubt, my language is French
> that express better my views with "logiciel libre"), that I have known and
> worked with for more than 20 years.
> I am basically a teacher. I have been for the last 30 years. I have taught
> (mainly) physics and computing science to people from 7 till 77 (the ones
> reading Tintin ;-). For me, the process of learning as much as the one of
> teaching, is difficult. It requires a lot of energy, time and patience, on
> both sides. And there is no good way, equally good for everyone. For every
> teacher and learner. Every situation is new, different, with its own
> difficulties.
> This GOAL mailing list contains probably a very high concentration of
> people who know OA much better than me, and have done so for much longer
> than I have. And we can read that even for these people, some important
> definitions around OA (eg. green and gold) are NOT the same. Interestingly.
> I also know that the number of people who have never heard of OA, or have
> such a bad and weak idea of OA, even in the limited world of academics,
> around the Universities and research institutions, is probably much larger
> than the number of specialists and informed people.
> I therefore would conclude that the efforts of education around OA is
> large and important.
> One of the way I often comes down to when teaching is using the clear
> wording and definitions, the best I can find, using my own and personnal
> judgement. As well as explaining with differents words.
> Today, I find that the wording "green OA" and "gold OA" are not
> self-explanatory. In other word, I consider that the words "green" and
> "gold" do not mean anything by themselves and need further explanation. If
> they are not confusing !
> For me, this situation is not the best to explain the OA case and need for
> OA. And it will probably lead to further mails like mine that will upset
> you. ... And block the discussion, as expressed by some people on the list.
> This is sad in a world where most people still need to be educated, in
> general and surely about OA and all its subleties.
> I sometimes wonder if I wo not prefer the simple word "free access". With
> free meaning both gratis and libre (freedom), this encompasses what
> Jean-CLaude Guédon says OA is "gratis and free access"
> With respect to "contibuting to OA instead of discussing about OA", I
> personnally like to think about "free knowledge" (not only research), being
> both gratis and libre, and I am proud to be the initiator and one of the
> actors of the Digithèque Pierre Gilbert, (see
> http://digitheque.ulb.ac.be/fr/digitheque-pierre-gilbert/ ) a place where
> all works by my grand-father are available online freely. He was a poet, an
> historian (aegyptologist and art historian), academician, curator of the
> Belgian Museum of Art and History ...
> I am the initiator and main actor of 2 digithèques to be inaugurated on
> October 17 and 25 in the presence of leading Belgian people, from the
> academic and research world, but NOT ONLY, about
> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Roberts-Jones and
> https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Sterling whose works will be
> published online under the CC-BY-SA licence.
> There are also other ways I consider I contribute to OA and free
> knowledge, or free culture. For example by numerous personnal contacts.
> I hope to continue, also on this list, to contribute to a peacefull world
> where more knowledge is available freely to anyone, without any barrier,
> where people are willing to educate one another.
> Best regards,
> Nicolas Pettiaux
> Nicolas Pettiaux, phd  - nicolas at pettiaux.be
> Open at work - Une Société libre utilise des outils libres



Le 2015-08-14 18:28, Stevan Harnad a écrit :

Perhaps it’s time for our newcomer, Nicolas Pettiaux, to stop posting for a
> while and do a little reading to inform himself about OA and its
> (short) history. Otherwise he is just making us recapitulate it for him.
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