Public Library of Science / License

[Daniel Zimmel]

Am Die, 17 Dez 2002 schrieb Laurent Guerby:

> Hi, it might be interesting to support
> <http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/>

Well, the open letter (that was signed by 30.000 scientists) has not
strongly affected overall journal policies as they might have hoped. PLOS
is not about free software but open access, indeed these two subjects
are related. 
Two days ago they have received a $9 mio. grant to launch a scientific
publishing venture--glad to hear it. 

Academic publishing resembles some strong similarities to free
software. Some recent initiatives (as PLOS) have come into existence
that base on free software to back their work. 
Other important sites about open access include the Budapest Open Access
Initiative (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/), and Peter Subers Free
Online Scholarship Weblog
(http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html). 

It is not easy to compete with established commercial publishers, so
these initiatives need support. 
I think there are some interesting things under way, and we will see
lots of free software involved. It would be good to follow these events
from our side. 

BTW, this year I finished my thesis in librarianship dealing with some
of these models and how they may affect the academic libraries (and
their heavily stressed budgets). Unfortunately it is in German, but
those interested may access the full text next month.

Regards,
	Daniel Zimmel

-- 
Where will your freedom be tomorrow?

	--> http://www.notcpa.org/faq.html