[Open-access] An anti-RWA bill

Tue Jan 31 13:09:15 UTC 2012

Nick Barnes wrote:

> Or to broaden it: pass an act requiring all
> federally-funded research papers to be open
> access.

What would be a rational reason to send our
publications to publishers, only to then retrieve
it from them again, even if it all were OA?
Their format (and I don't mean the layout) would
still be closed, non-interoperable and without any
standards.
What do publishers do we can't do better, for less
money?

Keeping publishers just adds reform upon reform
and we'll not be alive to see any of the
technology the general public has around today,
ever be implemented. Why would they give up their
profits without at least using them against us?
They can spend more than 10 million US$ every
single day for years to fight us. Do you have any
idea how many politicians you can buy for than
money?
This fight is like the entangled fly trying to
convince the spider not to eat it.

There is no law required to convince our libraries
we don't need publishers any more.
We don't need to pay our librarians to get access
to them.
Why would we keep giving publishers millions every
single day, which they only use to fight us?
Cut off the funding for the publishers and all our
problems are solved - the money we save builds the
technology we need.

The current system is like asking them to take our
money to fight us, that's worthy of Monty Python
("let's call it a draw!"), but not of scholars.

I'm not supporting anything that keeps publishers
in business, unless someone can convince me that
it's not a Monty Python sketch.

Best,

Bjoern

-- 
Björn Brembs
---------------------------------------------
http://brembs.net
Neurobiology
Freie Universität Berlin
Germany