[open-science] [Open-access] how open is it

Wed Sep 26 08:56:23 UTC 2012

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:08 AM, cameronneylon.net <cn at cameronneylon.net>wrote:

> My personal view, built on the idea that the key issue is
> interoperability, is that we should just require CC-BY as the Gold
> Standard. Much simpler and much less risk of unexpected problems arising
> due to license incompatibilities downstream. It always bothers me that
> people *want* a bespoke license. What does this achieve? And what is the
> motivation?
>
> So I think working towards a very strong statement of best practice for
> research/science is valuable and it seems that there is some movement
> towards CC-BY/ccZero/BSD for content, data and code respectively (code is
> the least worked out and has the least agreement as yet) as a standard.
>

+1

The Open Access movement is still fragmented and lacks a useful neutral
exposition. Its complicate because it is so religious and factional. So any
of my and other attempts to create a discussion are shot down, often with
inaccuracies. There is no useful document giving an idea of the rationale
and opportunities in OA. They are, for example, all predicated on the idea
that there is a 15 billion USD publishing industry, mainly for profit, and
that this is ordained as the optimal and unchanging way to publish.
Journals are still largely sacrosanct. The megajournals will somwhat change
this as will article metrics but who is administering this? T/R decide what
is and what is not an indexable journal and what a citation is. Within this
mess it is very difficult to provide best practice. However a  "neutral"
statement would be extremely valuable.

Data is easier at this stage because (a) most people haven't engaged (b)
there is very little commercial involvement and (c) we already have the
Panton Principles.  We *have* to get the mainstream involved in this -
especially funders. The almost total indifference of mainstream publishers
(BMC, PLoS? excepted)  to Panton, open Biblio principles and Open Content
Mining means we have a great deal of advocacy to do. But IMO this is
undoubtedly the way that we in OKF should go. Get clear principles, get the
community to discuss, refine them and then aggressively advocate. BOAI
is/was a great document, but the Harnadistas should never have been allowed
to corrupt it. And uncertainty and division is worth huge amounts to
commerce, who then make things worse if unconstrained.

Code. The only distinction for me is whether or not to allow viral
copyleft. My impression is that many people now deliberately choose one or
the other. I would not use GPL as I wish industry to use and re-use my
code. (I have to bite my lip when I see the distortions in chemistry from
some industry who rebadge and re-use without permission but the public/open
domain has few effective champions).  I can't say I would wish to require
BSD and forbid GPL and I think it's too late for that. And within the
BSD-like family you really have to be a lawyer to see al the ramifications.
I have personally had considerable problems being pressured to relicence my
LGPL (sic) code as BSD when a company (nameless here) was vitrioloc about
the Blue Obelisk but demanded a change of licence because it made static
linking easier for them. BTW I didn't choose LGPL - my code was part of a
larger system.

We *have* to insist on CC-BY for articles. It's simple and the good thing
is that funders understand and support it. We should create a simple
statement for what we want an article to be. Avoid all use of Green and
Gold. Kill the CC-NC serpent. I think this would be acceptable to current
CC-BY publishers.I think it would help to sway CC-not-quite-libre and
homebrewed licences. We would avoid all mention of fees etc.

Something like:
"For scientific communication and re-use of information it is essential to
license the article and all copies specifically and clearly. Terms such as
'open Access' should be avoided".
"The licence must explicitly allow use, reuse and redistribution consistent
with BOAI. We strongly recommend CC-BY (without the SA variant).
Non-commercial restrictions should be avoided at all costs"
"Where 'publications' consist of several components it is essential that
all carry a licence. In some cases (e.g. data-rich) it may be appropriate
to licence these as CC0 or PDDL".

IOW we come up with a Panton approach to scholarly articles. I think this
could now be compelling, engaging and for all except those with entrenched
minds valuable and adoptable.

I've got quite excited about this!

P.

Cheers
>
> Cameron
>
> >> Without wishing to re-open old wounds, the OpenDefinition isn't really
> appropriate in this context as it isn't strong enough as a definition for
> interoperability of bespoke licences. We're adopting the BOAI original
> definition alongside the recommendations of BOAI10 here that CC-BY is best
> practice (for journal *articles*...not really referring strongly to data
> here) ie share-alike is not "open enough" in this domain.
> >
> > Point very much taken Cameron. In which case - what about
> > "OpenDefinition compliant 'attribution style' licensing" which
> > shouldn't cause interoperability issues?
> >
> > Or perhaps it isn't worth broadening from CC-BY (as it might have been
> > a few years ago) as people are much more likely to use CC-BY than to
> > roll their own, which of course should be encouraged.
> >
> > J.
> >
> >> But feel free to comment!
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> Cameron
> >>
> >>> J.
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Tom Olijhoek <tom.olijhoek at gmail.com
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> A very important announcement I think
> >>>>>
> >>>>> judge for yourself
> >>>>>
> >>>>> http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/HowOpenIsIt.shtml
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> YES. It's about time something like this happened - SPARC has been
> quiet and
> >>>> I look to them for some guidance. I haven't read the booklet, but
> comment on
> >>>> the abstract
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> • Move the conversation from “Is It Open Access?” to “How Open Is It?”
> >>>> • Clarify the definition of OA
> >>>> • Standardize terminology
> >>>> • Illustrate a continuum of “more open” versus “less open”
> >>>> • Enable people to compare and contrast publications and policies
> >>>> • Broaden the understanding of OA to a wider audience
> >>>>
> >>>> These are all critical. Until recently there was nowhere they could be
> >>>> discussed without the discussion being destroyed.
> >>>>
> >>>> But now we have OKF open-access !!
> >>>>
> >>>> Let's offer this organ to the world and let's finally try to get a
> decent
> >>>> discussion going.
> >>>>
> >>>> P.
> >>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> TOM
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> open-access mailing list
> >>>>> open-access at lists.okfn.org
> >>>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-access
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Peter Murray-Rust
> >>>> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> >>>> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> >>>> University of Cambridge
> >>>> CB2 1EW, UK
> >>>> +44-1223-763069
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> open-access mailing list
> >>>> open-access at lists.okfn.org
> >>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-access
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Jonathan Gray
> >>>
> >>> Head of Community
> >>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> >>> http://www.okfn.org
> >>>
> >>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> open-access mailing list
> >>> open-access at lists.okfn.org
> >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-access
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Gray
> >
> > Head of Community
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation
> > http://www.okfn.org
> >
> > http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > open-science mailing list
> > open-science at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-access mailing list
> open-access at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-access
>

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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