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Hi all. This email, with a small bit of editing/link-adding, has now been turned into a blog post at PL Perspectives, the SIGPLAN blog. Please add your thoughts there! https://blog.sigplan.org/2020/01/14/what-is-a-sustainable-path-to-open-access/ Thanks, Roberto, for your thoughts about this issue! -Mike On Sun, Jan 12, 2020 at 4:49 PM Roberto Di Cosmo <[email protected]> wrote: > [ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list > ] > > Dear all, > the strong reaction to ACM signing the infamous letter from the 135 > institutions > < > https://presspage-production-content.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/1508/coalitionletteropposinglowerembargoes-864869.pdf > > > confirms > that in our research area we are today largely in favour of Open Access: it > is not surprising considering the tradition and values of our community. > The good news is that after a quarter of a century of declarations, > discussions, and little progress, powerful forces are now setting tight > deadlines in order to finally trigger a real transition on a global scale. > > In Europe, Plan S <https://www.coalition-s.org/> has been a strong > political move, pushing a coalition of funding agencies to force 100% open > acces by 2021 on publications issued by research they fund; we can expect > the US proposal that sparked the infamous letter will be an equivalent > strong push forward in the US. > > Moving from a generic support of Open Access to a rational approach to > *Sustainable > Open Access*, though, is more complex than it seems. > > - Should we go for "green open access > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Green_OA>", i.e. self > archiving the author version of our papers somewhere like we do in > France > with the HAL platform (that still has a cost to cover)? > - Should we go for "gold open access > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Gold_OA>", aka "author > pays", > maybe with some discount as per SIGPLAN sponsorship? > - And what about the "diamond" or "platinum" open access, where neither > readers nor authors pay (rest assured, somebody *does* pay, there is no > free lunch :-))? > > In any case, the big question is how costs should be covered, and here the > debate seems mostly focused on the "right" price for publishing a single > article (or APC, for article processing charge). > > The original version of the Plan S was strongly oriented towards gold open > access ("author pays") with capped APC covered by institutions, not > individuals, even if it was later clarified that green open access is also > acceptable (this is called the "repository route" in II.2 of the > implementation guidelines of Plan S > < > https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-the-implementation-of-plan-s/principles-and-implementation/ > > > ). > > Let me say upfront that I *strongly dislike* the APC approach, for a very > simple reason that can be resumed in a statement that was attributed to a > famous billionaire: "*If you want to get rich, build something that has a > fixed cost and engenders variable income, and then get as many customers as > possible*". > > There are indeed two main approaches to charging for an infrastructure > (like a telephone network, a highway, the Internet or ... a publishing > system): > > - the first is to charge "per use", e.g. phone calls by the minute, data > per megabyte, etc., and this is how many big fortunes were made: these > infrastructures have usually a fixed cost that is independent on its > use, > so when you have many users, the "variable income" quickly outweighs the > fixed cost, and you can buy a Ferrari, a private Jet, a skyscraper, etc. > - the second is to calculate the cost, add some reasonable margin for > investments, and divide the result among the users (aka "mutualising > costs"): this way, the more users come, the less the amount they need to > pay. No Ferrari, here :-) > > Framing the debate in terms of the value of an APC, even capped, falls > squarely in the first approach, and IMHO is a Trojan horse for large > publishing corporations to keep their double digit profit margins, or even > increase them, in the transition to Open Access. > And those double digit profits are money that is stripped away from our > global research effort! > > The ACM OPEN plan (https://libraries.acm.org/subscriptions-access/acmopen > ), > on the other hand, falls squarely in the second approach, and is > potentially a viable and virtuous one. I say *potentially* because, as many > pointed out (and as stated in the text of the ongoing petition > < > https://www.change.org/p/association-for-computing-machinery-acm-support-open-access > >), > the calculations of the "cost" that is proposed to mutualise seem to > include more than the publication process alone. > But also because we should think at a *more global scale* and see what > parts of the ACM publishing infrastructure is specific, and what part > should be mutualised with other entities, bringing the overall cost down. > More clarification is needed, but the recent second letter from ACM > leadership > <https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/about/acm-letter-to-ostp.pdf> > lets us hope that ACM is able to listen to its members. > > In any case, it's important in this debate to have a clear sustainability > plan, and analyze all the costs involved. On the one hand, one should not > add to the bill costs unrelated to the publishing infrastructure. On the > other hand, one must refrain from thinking that there is no cost apart from > our own work as researchers/reviewers/editors/pc-chairs: even simply > maintaining an online archive for the long term has a real, uncompressible > cost, that we usually do not see until we have to actually run one > [disclosure: I'm running one now <https://www.softwareheritage.org> :-)]. > > All the best > > -- > Roberto > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Computer Science Professor > (on leave at INRIA from IRIF/University Paris Diderot) > > Director > Software Heritage https://www.softwareheritage.org > INRIA > Bureau C328 E-mail : [email protected] > 2, Rue Simone Iff Web page : http://www.dicosmo.org > CS 42112 Twitter : http://twitter.com/rdicosmo > 75589 Paris Cedex 12 Tel : +33 1 80 49 44 42 > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > GPG fingerprint 2931 20CE 3A5A 5390 98EC 8BFC FCCA C3BE 39CB 12D3 >
