[IP] Re: All online USENIX proceedings now free

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Rahul Tongia [tongia@cmu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:12 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] All online USENIX proceedings now free

Dave,

Let's not forget IEEE and ACM are still vastly better (i.e., cheaper)
than many journals not affiliated to professional societies, e.g.
private (for-profit) ones.

One "solution" is for authors to use amended copyright forms, e.g.,
through ScienceCommons, whereby they can self-publish on their own
webpage.  From what I gather, these are becoming more and more accepted
by certain groups like IEEE/ACM.

The conference or journal can still retain copyright, but dissemination
gets helped.  Of course, as Matt stated, its amazing that the authors
and reviewers do all their work for free.

That said, I've come across more and more "open access" journals where
the publication cost is borne by the author, but access is free.  I'm
not sure where I stand on these. An IPers have insights or new ideas on
their role and design?

Rahul

************************************************************************
Rahul Tongia, Ph.D.
Senior Systems Scientist

Program in Computation, Organizations, and Society (COS)
School of Computer Science (ISR) /
Dept. of Engineering & Public Policy

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
tel: 412-268-5619
fax: 412-268-2338
email: tongia@cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia



David Farber wrote:
> ________________________________________
> From: Matt Blaze [mab@crypto.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:03 PM
> To: David Farber
> Subject: All online USENIX proceedings now free
>
> I'm delighted to report that USENIX, probably the most important
> technical
> society at which I publish (and on whose board I serve), has taken a
> long-
> overdue lead toward openly disseminating scientific research. Effective
> immediately, all USENIX proceedings and papers will be freely
> available on the
> USENIX web site as soon as they are published. (Previously, most of the
> organization's proceedings required a member login for access for the
> first year
> after their publication.)  The proceedings are available at:
>    http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/
>
> For years, many authors have made their papers available on their own
> web sites,
> but the practice is haphazard, non-archivial, and, remarkably,
> actively discouraged
> by the restrictive copyright policies of many journals and
> conferences. So USENIX's
> step is important both substantively and symbolically. It reinforces
> why scientific
> papers are published in the first place: not as a proprietary revenue
> source, but to
> advance the state of the art for the benefit of society as a whole.
>
> Unfortunately, other major technical societies that sponsor
> conferences and journals
> still cling to the antiquated notion, rooted in a rapidly-
> disappearing print-based
> publishing economy, that they naturally "own" the writings that
> volunteer authors,
> editors and reviewers produce. These organizations, which insist on
> copyright control
> as a condition of publication, argue that the sale of conference
> proceedings and journal
> subscriptions provides an essential revenue stream that subsidizes
> their other good works.
> But this income, however well it might be used, has evolved into an
> ill-gotten windfall.
> We write scientific papers first and last because we want them read.
> When papers were
> actually printed on paper it might have been reasonable to expect
> authors to donate the
> copyright in exchange for production and distribution. Today, of
> course, such a model
> seems at best quaintly out of touch with the needs of researchers and
> academics who can
> no longer tolerate the delay or expense of seeking out printed copies
> of documents they
> expect to find on the web.
>
> Organizations devoted to computing research should recognize this not-
> so-new reality better
> than anyone. It's time for ACM and IEEE to follow USENIX's leadership
> in making scientific
> papers freely available to all comers. Let's urge them to do so.
>
> Matt Blaze
> http://www.crypto.com/blog
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
>

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