Re: [ox-en] Wellcome Trust about free access to scientific results
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:36:47 -0500 (EST)
Hi Stefan
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Stefan Merten wrote:
Another voice from the scientific community calling for free access to
scientific results:
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html
Actually it becomes a considerable choir now :-) .
Have you read the Welcome trust's economic justification? I don't think
this is in line with oekonux at all; it's screwing the researchers by
passing all the costs to them...
I remember vaguely I read something like this, yes. However, in a
quick scan of the page I can't find it (any more?). Would you
recommend removing the link?
No. I assume the list of links is for informative and relevant material
(which this is) not just for 'ideological sympathizers' :-)
I find it nice that this development is totally in line with Oekonux
theory ;-) .
I'd like to stress that I think the general *development* is in line
with Oekonux theory. If Oekonux theory says something like "Creative
mental work can be done better in a Free manner - just like in Free
Software" then it is in line with that theory that more and more areas
where creative mental work is done move to the Free Production mode.
I think it's another case where the objective situation is pushing
organizations to do things that aren't necessarily related to their own
immediate goals.
Like many of the firms that use the GPL for purely commercial reasons that
have nothing to do with freedom, but who end up increasing the scale and
importance of free software regardless of their particular intention.
In this case, the intention may be to move costs from libraries and
institutions to individual researchers or research groups. But the effect
is also (hopefully) to make it normal again for research results to be
available free of charge, rather than effectively made semi-secret by
exorbitant costs.
The more complicated question is whether it's possible to challenge the
model where there are any monetary costs. Maybe there are 'freie
Forschungsresultate' and 'doppelte freie Forschungsresultate'[1] ;-) -
the first done with voluntary peer review, the second 'owned' by Springer
Verlag and friends ...
Graham
[1] Made up German for 'free research results' and 'doubly free research
results'
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3in
Charset: noconv
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.7, an Emacs/PGP interface
iQCVAwUBQAUufAnTZgC3zSk5AQHPGAQArPsinWOM6FIpYjouL73EMu1AD9jVCfAs
zWfr4r72h0+u58+8LJFo1rg9tBUEg0MEbL7+L/8dHcr1eyK/pktver67IwfO4JH8
OxKUO+0wWYrfto5oyfsK9rpeJ74yoVN/rUL6ZGARr3YiBEgVsQ64zhw8EqR2MQXP
PHGU0p7Lz0o=
=pB66
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/