[okfn-discuss] Problems of nomenclature

[Peter Murray-Rust]

This is a very useful discussion. I am some others are particularly
concerned with scholarly publication and so i'll move that discussion to
the open-access list

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 12:10 AM, Kim Tucker <kctucker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Chris and all,
>
> Libre means free as in freedom.
>
> The definition is well established and may be found at:
>
> http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
>
> and in the context of libre knowledge:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/Declaration_on_libre_knowledge
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre_Knowledge
>
> As you know, these definitions are rooted in the free software definition:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
>
> A libre resource either complies with the definition or it doesn't.
> There is no "semi-libre" (the FSF dropped that term "semi-free" some
> time ago and the libre knowledge communities I know have never used
> it).
>

Unfortunately that is not true in the "Open Access" scholarly publishing
world where "open" can mean almost anything and where "libre" also has many
meanings. The usage is laid out by Peter Suber [copied, and on OKF advisory
board] at:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/442-guid.html

*

Some observations [from Peter Suber]:
*
*

   - In April 2008, Stevan Harnad and I proposed some terms to describe two
   kinds of free online access:  the kind which removes price barriers alone
   and the kind which removes price barriers and at least some permission
   barriers as well.  The distinction is fundamental and widely-recognized,
   but we saw right away that our terms (weak OA and strong
OA<http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/2008/04/strong-and-weak-oa.html>)
   were ill-chosen and we stopped using them.  However, all of us who work for
   OA and talk about OA still need vocabulary to describe this basic
   distinction.  The most neutral and descriptive terms I've been able to find
   so far are "gratis OA" and "libre OA", and I've decided use them myself
   until I find better ones.  This choice of terms is personal and
   provisional.  But to make it more effective, I wanted to explain it in
   public.
   - "Gratis" and "libre" may not be familiar terms in the domain of
   scholarly communication and OA.  But in the neighboring domain of free and
   open source software, they exactly express the
distinction<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre>I have in
 mind.
   - [...]  The gratis/libre distinction is about user rights or freedoms.
   - [...]
   - Libre OA includes or presupposes gratis OA.  [...]
   - Because there are many different permission barriers to remove, there
   many different degrees or kinds of libre OA.  Gratis OA is just one thing,
   but libre OA is a range of things.
   - The BBB <http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/overview.htm#definition>definition
describes one kind or subset of libre OA.  But not all libre OA
   is BBB OA.
   - I'm  not proposing a change in the BBB definition, and I haven't
   retreated an inch in my support for it.  I'm simply proposing vocabulary to
   help us talk unambiguously about two species of free online access.

This blog post is just a sketch.  For more detail, see the full SOAN
article<http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre>.

*
*


*PMR: The problem for me is that OA-libre has an indefinitely large range
of meanings. The removal of a single "permission barrier" can lead to
libre. It is possible that libre grants no additional rights to the reader
(it could be the permission for a library to make a copy for archival, for
example).

I find this regrettable. The chance of converting the OA community to use
"libre" in its software sense is small. I have spent years trying to make
this point. The OA community generally is not interested in discussing
licences and words are used for their advocacy and political role. This
leads to publishers using terms such as "fully open access" to refer to
articles where the reader has no explicit rights other than to read them.

For that reason I have been suggesting "BOAI-compliant OA" or similar. I'm
happy to use BBB if people thing that's better. In the OA world  hundreds
of millions of academic dollars are spent putting material in repositories
without clear terms of re-use. Where there are licences the vast majority
are CC-NC or worse. 95% of "hybrid Gold OA" articles, with large authorside
fees (1000-5000 USD), are not BBB-compliant.

Here's a new journal from two days ago "Chemistry Open":
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%292191-1363/ It uses
CC-NC, costs the author 2500 USD to publish and requires transfer of
copyright to Wiley

http://media.wiley.com/assets/1540/98/ctavchglobal.pdf

Other restrictions are that every copy must point to the Wiley journal,
that the author may not distribute their submitted version except to
"colleagues" and much more.

Klaus, please do not read further - it will damage your health