To contextualize the discussion on "open access" (the practice of editors that ask for a sum of money in order to make the paper available). It costs a lot: abo

To contextualize the discussion on "open access" (the practice of editors that ask for a sum of money in order to make the paper available). It costs a lot: about 1k for ACM venues. Currently I have to pay for this out of my own budget, and I don't have that kind of money (I'm a PhD student, and in addition to my scholarship (1.8k€/month net of tax, in Belgium), I get a 5k€ budget for two years that must cover material and travel -- I can also get about one additional travel grant per year). Publisher have about zero added value except fixing the odd latex issue. Actual editorial work is assumed free of charge by professors. Other venues such as Arxiv and CiteSeerX do a better job of distribution for free. Science publishers are leeches in the system and should be removed. I think the EU a measure will precipitate the current movement against such predatorial publishing practice. Already, publishers are walking on eggs. They move against sci-hub but they'd never dare to go against the common practice to just host everything one publishes publicly, license notwithstanding, something almost everyone does in the CS field -- maybe they say it's a "draft"... (meaning there isn't a copyright notice mostly).