[open-science] Possibly interesting for this list: see item 3 in particular

Wed Oct 22 04:08:19 UTC 2014

> On Oct 22, 2014, at 3:35 AM, William Gunn <william.gunn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Puneet, it's a large organization. There are some people who get it and really want to do the right things and there are some people who are less progressive.

Sorry, didn't mean to out you on the defensive, and this is definitely not about you. 

But, my general notion is that Elsevier is just puzzling to me. It does its best, as a whole, to be about as unfriendly as possible to the open movement and to scientists, and then pops up in the most unlikely places holding and sponsoring events, etc. Reminds me of how a certain very large GIS company used to behave toward the open geospatial community but then would sponsor lunches at open geo conferences, trying to buy its way via developers' stomachs. MSFT/Novell did the same in their heyday. Those are unsavory memories. The whole Elsevier TDM license business has not been very progressive at all, and definitely TDM is a cause close to my (and PMR's) heart. My colleagues have suffered needlessly.

If and when the day comes that Elsevier becomes a fair and progressive publisher that balances its fair profit making with promoting open, participative and collaborative science, I will be the first to applaud them. I don't think any reasonable person would grudge anyone a fair profit and promotion of open science. We can all live with that.

Puneet.