I feel I have to speak out against the opinions voiced by Stevan - I don't like to do this as there is - possibly - a common goal. But they are so exclusionary that they must be challenged, if only for those people people on the list and more widely who are looking for guidance.<br>
<br>The idea that there is a set of "researchers" in Universities who deserve special consideration and for whom public funds must be spent is offensive. I fall directly into SH's category of "the general public", whom he now identifies as of peripheral importance and thankful for the crumbs that fall from his approach.. I have worked in industry, work with industry and although I have been an academic am not now paid as one. The idea that I am de facto second-class is unacceptable, even if you accept the convoluted logic that this is necessary to achieve Green Open Access.<br>
<br>There are no areas of science and more generally scholarship which are not in principle highly valuable to "the general public". I am, for example, at present working in phylogenetics - not a discipline I have been trained in - and I and my software wishes to read 10,000 papers per year. Most of these papers could be of great interest to some people - they detail the speciation of organisms and are fully understandable by, say, those whose hobby is natural history or those with responsibility for decision making. <br>
<br>SH's pronouncements do considerable damage to the OA movement. I am a supporter of publicly funded Gold OA and of domain repositories. I am not prepared for these to be dismissed ex cathedra. Both work well in the areas I am acquainted with - I am on the board of UK PubMedCentral and also on the board of a BOIA-compliant Open Access journal (where, by the way, half the papers come from outside academia and are every bit as competent and valuable). I have personally not many any scientists who are highly committed to Green OA and before stating their position as "facts" it would be useful to hear from them and listen.<br>
<br>There is an increasing amount of scholarship taking place outside Universities and without the public purse. Wikipedia is, perhaps, the best example of this and could - if minds were open - act as an interesting approach to respositories. It's notable that uptake of publication-related tools such as WP, Figshare, Dryad, Mendeley, etc. is high, because people actually want them. I would like to see effort on information-saving and sharing tools that people need and community repositories.<br clear="all">
<br>I'll stop there - I sincerely hope that SH's list does not get wider traction.<br><br>-- <br>Peter Murray-Rust<br>emeritus Reader in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>
CB2 1EW, UK<br>+44-1223-763069<br>