4 ms·

an organization dedicated, not to maximize profits for shareholders, but to keep power over scientific research in people’s hands That's why we have government

an organization dedicated, not to maximize profits for shareholders, but to keep power over scientific research in people’s hands That's why we have governments. No, I'm not being sarcastic. The public sector is there to serve the public good, and this is quite obviously a public good. I'm not anti-privatization either. Private exploitation under public laws and guidelines is a common strategy to solve these issues. What has undermined public/private solutions is not public opinion or political ideology, but greed, lobbying and corruption. A foundation is nothing but a workaround, and foundations have a history of getting corrupted by the greed and delusions of grandure of its administrators. It's time we address the real problem. The legacy of thousands of years of civilization is being stolen from us.

spindritf 14y ago
> It's time we address the real problem. The real problem is that some companies manage to exploit a monopoly granted to them by the government in ways that are not pleasing to the public. The government is the entity which created the problem. Granted, while solving another but it will still be the government agents who break down your door and arrest you if you build an unauthorized competitor or even just try to release that "legacy" (vide Aaron Swartz), not Elsevier's. It's hard for me to understand how you can blame a company that puts up a paywall more than people using violence (or at least credible threats of it) who enforce the rules stopping others from competing.
- bmalee 14y ago
  There's a difference between a for-profit company with a government-backed monopoly, and a not-for-profit organisation with government support (of which there are already many examples). I don't think anyone here blames companies for putting up a paywall or doing something else to maximise their profits; it's why they exist. However, we do recognise that this is not always an ideal state of affairs. A public sector body is one way to remove the profit requirement; private-sector not-for-profit organisations are also a possibility (but have to worry more about where their funding comes from).
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jbooth 14y ago
  So you're arguing that because the government has a monopoly on force, anything bad that happens anywhere in the US is their fault because it's their guns backing up the law? Laws happen because a variety of agents (lobbyists, legislators, public interest groups) push for them. They're not enacted by some amorphous specter of 'government'.
- rplacd 14y ago
  > The government is the entity which created the problem. And it acts as an extension of "the people" as the entity providing oversight and regulation in this example as well. That it doesn't happen in real life is evidence of subversion of an ideal, rather than some inherent truth.
- freshhawk 14y ago
  > It's hard for me to understand how you can blame a company that puts up a paywall more than people using violence (or at least credible threats of it) who enforce the rules stopping others from competing Because we're not 15 year olds who just read Atlas Shrugged?
scarmig 14y ago
I appreciate where you're coming from. But do you really trust, say, Sarah Palin to oversee evolutionary biology research? Exxon to have veto power over climate change articles? Todd Akin to be able to interfere in STD epidemiology? The open source movement has shown that there's a third way, and I suspect that that's the way to go. It's fault tolerant: if a group of people are detracting from its mission, the others can very easily go on and continue as is. Science is more expensive than software, though, and therein lies the rub.
- Thrymr 14y ago
  Science is already funded, in very large part, by the federal government (in the US). The research is already subject to political pressures, here we're just talking about the (much smaller) amount that goes towards publications. Federal grants are going to fund research, the results of which are locked up behind the paywalls of proprietary journals (grant dollars even pay for the privilege of publishing in some journals). Publications by federal employees are already required by law to be in the public domain. It's time we look at doing the same for the results of federally funded research.
  - omnisci 14y ago
    This is exactly what I'm working on. Also, publications by federally funded grants are required to be made public as well (for 1 year). However, even doing that, you are still stuck behind the political pressures, journal bias, and the peer review system which...for a lack of a better term, sucks. Science needs to be transparent and made available in real time. This is the whole purpose of science, to freely distribute knowledge for the well being of humanity. I honestly believe that and I'm working to bring that transparency to science as we speak.
  - simonster 14y ago
    > Publications by federal employees are already required by law to be in the public domain. It's time we look at doing the same for the results of federally funded research. Yes, this needs to happen. NIH already requires that publications arising from NIH-funded research be made publicly available 12 months after publication (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ http://publicaccess.nih.gov/). Other funding organizations really need to do this. IMHO, they should also require that publications be made publicly available immediately upon acceptance and provide incentives for "gold" open access (where the article is immediately made available on the publisher's website).

spindritf 14y ago

> It's time we address the real problem. The real problem is that some companies manage to exploit a monopoly granted to them by the government in ways that are not pleasing to the public. The government is the entity which created the problem. Granted, while solving another but it will still be the government agents who break down your door and arrest you if you build an unauthorized competitor or even just try to release that "legacy" (vide Aaron Swartz), not Elsevier's. It's hard for me to understand how you can blame a company that puts up a paywall more than people using violence (or at least credible threats of it) who enforce the rules stopping others from competing.

bmalee 14y ago
There's a difference between a for-profit company with a government-backed monopoly, and a not-for-profit organisation with government support (of which there are already many examples). I don't think anyone here blames companies for putting up a paywall or doing something else to maximise their profits; it's why they exist. However, we do recognise that this is not always an ideal state of affairs. A public sector body is one way to remove the profit requirement; private-sector not-for-profit organisations are also a possibility (but have to worry more about where their funding comes from).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jbooth 14y ago
So you're arguing that because the government has a monopoly on force, anything bad that happens anywhere in the US is their fault because it's their guns backing up the law? Laws happen because a variety of agents (lobbyists, legislators, public interest groups) push for them. They're not enacted by some amorphous specter of 'government'.
rplacd 14y ago
> The government is the entity which created the problem. And it acts as an extension of "the people" as the entity providing oversight and regulation in this example as well. That it doesn't happen in real life is evidence of subversion of an ideal, rather than some inherent truth.
freshhawk 14y ago
> It's hard for me to understand how you can blame a company that puts up a paywall more than people using violence (or at least credible threats of it) who enforce the rules stopping others from competing Because we're not 15 year olds who just read Atlas Shrugged?

scarmig 14y ago

I appreciate where you're coming from. But do you really trust, say, Sarah Palin to oversee evolutionary biology research? Exxon to have veto power over climate change articles? Todd Akin to be able to interfere in STD epidemiology? The open source movement has shown that there's a third way, and I suspect that that's the way to go. It's fault tolerant: if a group of people are detracting from its mission, the others can very easily go on and continue as is. Science is more expensive than software, though, and therein lies the rub.

Thrymr 14y ago
Science is already funded, in very large part, by the federal government (in the US). The research is already subject to political pressures, here we're just talking about the (much smaller) amount that goes towards publications. Federal grants are going to fund research, the results of which are locked up behind the paywalls of proprietary journals (grant dollars even pay for the privilege of publishing in some journals). Publications by federal employees are already required by law to be in the public domain. It's time we look at doing the same for the results of federally funded research.
- omnisci 14y ago
  This is exactly what I'm working on. Also, publications by federally funded grants are required to be made public as well (for 1 year). However, even doing that, you are still stuck behind the political pressures, journal bias, and the peer review system which...for a lack of a better term, sucks. Science needs to be transparent and made available in real time. This is the whole purpose of science, to freely distribute knowledge for the well being of humanity. I honestly believe that and I'm working to bring that transparency to science as we speak.
- simonster 14y ago
  > Publications by federal employees are already required by law to be in the public domain. It's time we look at doing the same for the results of federally funded research. Yes, this needs to happen. NIH already requires that publications arising from NIH-funded research be made publicly available 12 months after publication (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ http://publicaccess.nih.gov/). Other funding organizations really need to do this. IMHO, they should also require that publications be made publicly available immediately upon acceptance and provide incentives for "gold" open access (where the article is immediately made available on the publisher's website).