[WSIS CS-Plenary] ITID's The World Summit in Reflection

[Dr. Francis MUGUET]

Hello !

Coming back to read the list, after a hectic day.
Trying to answer or comment on this thread.

>>
>> I urge all authors to demand from MIT press that
>> all their articles be freely accessible.
>
>
> good suggestion francis - why not draft something to send do MIT? or 
> as a template for authors?
>
Thanks a lot Karen for your support.
In fact, It is now my faint recollection that I have been in contact to 
submit
a contribution to this journal.  Of course, I requested that  my  
contribution
should be freely available online, and it seems that
Michael L. Best told me it was OK.  Now, I cannot find the mails
related to this exchange to be sure. I remember I was too busy and I let
pass the deadline.
I guess that authors should ask and due to the nature of the topic,
the publisher should fell compelled to adopt an open access policy
at least for this issue
A good example is the
Serials Review : *Volume 30, Issue 4, Special Issue: Open Access 2004* 
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913> (December 2004)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913
published by the commercial publisher Reed Elsevier,
where authors have been successfull (after putting some fight )
in forcing this powerfull publisher to adopt an open access policy for 
this issue.

If the MIT Press refuses, then we can setup a mirror of the table of content
( the TOC is open access ) with instead of links to the paid-per-view  
article,
a link to an institutional archive or the personnal site of the author.
It is a new Open Access strategy that I have been thinking for a while,
pushing the notion of an overlay journal to its limits.
This is the project "Reprints.net" that I am planning to propose
to the SI group soon within a coherent set of measures to implement
Open Access.  I am still working on this, to refine the ideas.

-----------------------------
Dear Atanu

>in this connection, http://wiki.dspace.org/DspaceInstances is a good
>initiative by few institutes. the POA text on open access is certainly need
>to be strengthened.
>
Yes, Dspace is one of the Open Archive intiative. If the MIT refuses to 
allow
Open Access, but allow Open Archiving then authors might their reprints 
there.
------------------------------

>I urge all authors to demand from MIT press that
>> all their articles be freely accessible.
>  
>
>I strongly support your statement, Francis!.
>
>together with Diego Levis, we will ask them to publish our article on
>the website, freely accesible.
>
>  
>
Muchas gracias Beatriz !
lo sabía que podía siempre contar con tu apoyo !

>abrazos
>Beatriz
>
------------------------------------------

Dear Rony


>MIT is a private entity. 
>
>  
>
Funded by public and philanthropic funds

>It has every right to attempt to generate revenue by selling its materials.
>  
>
that people are giving them to free....
this is not commerce, but a vast "con artist" scheme

>There is no requirement, legal or moral, that organizations go bankrupt to
>meet your view that everything should be free and that nobody should be
>allowed to make a living from his/her work.
>  
>
I forgive you, you are simply ignorant of the facts;
academic authors are not paid for their work by publishers
have a look at
http://www.wsis-si.org/oa-facts.html
read also the speek by Samassekou
http://www.wsis-si.org/CODATA/codata-samassekou-en.pdf
also in French
http://www.wsis-si.org/CODATA/codata-samassekou-fr.pdf

Now, since you are in the Media caucus, let me stress sonething
that I should ponder :
It is that amazing that most of the newpapers are"open access" while their
publishing companies have every right to make readers to pay for this 
information,
because they have to pay their journalists, while scientific publsihers 
are making
huge profits taking advantage of academics.....

----------------------------------------
Dear Mike

>I personally, have decided to follow Lawrence Lessig's lead and only
>publish my academic writing in Open Archive journals which make their
>materials freely available to all via the net.
>
>Mike Gurstein
>
>Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
>School of Management 
>New Jersey Institute of Technology
>
>Editor-in-Chief Journal of Community Informatics http://ci-journal.net
>
>
Cheers !, you are a publisher of an Open Access journal. !
I already noticed your journal because it is using the PKP
system that we are beginning to use partially for MDPI journals.
I was not aware you were interested by the WSIS.
Good News to have another OA supporter onboard !

---------------------------------------------
Dear Jonathan

>That's exactly correct. 
>
>Koven's comments do not fit the realities of (academic) research. He
>accuses Francis of believing that "nobody should be allowed to make
>a living from his/her work." This is disingenuous. Those of us at
>academic institutions are not (directly) compensated for the transfer of
>copyright. It is the publisher who makes the profit (really a rent for a
>legally-induced and otherwise wholly artificial scarcity), not the
>author. Moreover, the profit is mostly generated from the budgets of
>research libraries, which do not make money from direct exploitation of
>the work on their shelves. 

I am not surprised by your answer !
Thanks a lot for your vigilance, you accurate answer and 
your timely support, 
your active participation in the SI group has always been
a tremendous asset for OA lbbbying at the WSIS.  
--------------------------------------------

Dear Elizabeth

>According to the website information "This work is licensed
>under a Creative Commons License."   Therefore copying and distributing the
>online papers for non commercial purposes is permitted.  See below for
>description.


This is quite interesting because at the MIT press site
http://mitpress.mit.edu/shared/legal/default.asp?sid=B3186ABC-A161-475D-97FF-499B99C1BD7A
Terms of Use :
Except as provided in the preceding sentences or as permitted by the fair use
privilege under the U.S. copyright laws (see e.g., 17 U.S.C. Section 107),
Users may not upload, post, reproduce, or distribute in any way Content
protected by copyright, or other proprietary right, without obtaining
permission of the owner of the copyright or other propriety right. In
addition to the foregoing, use of any software Content shall be governed
by the software license agreement accompanying such software.

but at the site you mentionned
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wsis/
I remember having seen this site when considering to contribute.

Welcome to The World Summit in Reflection: a Deliberative Dialogue on WSIS brought to you by the journal 
Information Technologies and International Development <http://mitpress.mit.edu/itid> and the 

Berkman Center for Internet and Society <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu>, Harvard Law School.

it is written
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/>.
What is the "work" as defined ?
May be not the works of the authors in this issue. 

You should have clicked to check if the papers were really available,
because when you click on the links, for example 
Beatriz or Divina papers then you are re-directed to the 
journal for the mention : 
Coming Soon - Alert me when this article is available <http://mitpress.mit.edu/shared/mlist/subscribe.asp?sid=9FAAEB29-A52C-4B4E-8AB7-178BAA05A9D4&ttype=6&tid=15614>
with at the bottom of the page
TERMS OF USE <http://mitpress.mit.edu/shared/legal/default.asp?sid=9FAAEB29-A52C-4B4E-8AB7-178BAA05A9D4> | PRIVACY POLICY <http://mitpress.mit.edu/shared/privacy/default.asp?sid=9FAAEB29-A52C-4B4E-8AB7-178BAA05A9D4> | COPYRIGHT © 2005 MIT

So this is not so clear, but nevertheless, thanks a lot,
 it brings some angle of legal traction if the MIT press refuses 
to open this issue, because authors could take cover
of this ambiguity and argue that their understanding 
was their work was covered by the
Creative Commons License.
----------------------------------

>I strongly support the statement by Francis and i suggest as many authors as
>possible ask MIT to publish their article on line, with free access.
>
>Best
>Divina

Merci Divina, la aussi , on savait que l'on pouvait compter sur toi
pour défendre l'Accès Libre.
--------------------------------------
Dear Elizabeth

>I thought there is free access  to the online papers and ability to
>distribute as I indicated in my previous post.  Access the online papers
>at:  http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wsis
>
>This work is licensed  under a Creative Commons License.  Am I missing
>something?

Yes, you missed to click and check, but thanks again pointing out
the Creative Commons License on the site

-----------------------------------
Dear Lisa


> that which would be risked 
>by junior scholars who have not yet received tenure and/or promotion. 
>For the latter, the jewel in the crown is the established, 
>mainstream, usually organizationally-associated journals, almost all 
>of which are published  by publishers who demand that copyright be 
>reassigned to them. Through mergers and acquisitions, these 
>publishers are becoming an oligopoly. Open archive journals are still 
>viewed with a great deal of skepticism, at least in the US, when it 
>comes to having one's writing evaluated.

You are pointing why many scientits have become accomplice of
such a monopolistic system : because of evaluation and promotion,
and their desire for career, without having a full conscience
of their societal responsablities.  
All OA supporters are painfully aware of those sad facts.
Now, to turn the tide, one should make aware the evuating bodies :
granting bodies, institutions, governement of this obsolete
scheme, when, in the end, it is the funding bodies (whether public 
or private ) that are subsidizing a very profitable and
parisitic industry that is enlarging the digital divide
at the content level.

Let me tell you that we have made some progress in that direction
at the WSIS, and other OA supporters have made progresses
with the Berlin Declaration.
Many European governements are slowing realizing that they
are victim of a "con artist" scheme of an unprecendented
magnitude and they do not want to pay the bills anymore.
Many develloping countries are now bring pressure on the
western gouverments to act.
Because bringing OA, is a win/win propostion :
Western governements are making huge savings and
develloping have the free access to knowledge they need
to avoid brain drain and promote sustainable development.

So, do not be pessismitic: we will prevail.


> One reason why I mention this is that I know that not everyone on this 
> list is an academic or a writer 

There is the SI group to discuss this between academics,
scientists ahd officials.

>Lisa (in full disclosure: among other things, I'm editor of Feminist 
>Media Studies, which is owned by one of the behemoths of for-profit 
>journal publishing: Taylor and Francis Ltd; but, in my defense, I 
>signed the contract before my smaller, less oligopolistic publisher 
>was bought out by T&F:))

This is akin to the slave trade, sold to one master, resold to
another....
In France, this situation has gone so wrong that Gauthiers-Villars
is still receiving subsidies from the French government, while
it has been acquired by Reed-Elsevier !

---------------------------------------------------

Dear Milton

>Ah, more ideological bullying from our friends in the free software movement. Notice that we are not given an argument by Francis, we are given a "demand"  and urged to "denounce" those evil people who only put some, not all, of their journal contents on line. 

Please distinguish the issue of "Free Software" and "Open Access".
I am first and foremost a scientist that promotes "Open Access", while I also
actively promote "Free Software".
They are obvious philosophical connections in between the two movements, but
the context and the goals are distinct. 



>I reject Francis's statement on grounds of civility, political philosophy, and logical consistency. I am frankly embrassed and disturbed by the obsequious responses it generated. Let me just inform Francis, and everyone else, that I for one am utterly unintimidated.
>

Oh, Milton, you give me a good occasion to laugh !   This is complete paranoia


> mentioned. Last I looked Economist does not put all its contents online for free. Or they attack Derrick Cogburn's attempts to include people in meetings using a proprietary collaborative software.

OK ! OK ! , we are getting to the bottom of this flame 
You hate me because I prevented the implementation of the
non inclusive solution of your fellow colleague Derek from Syracuse University like you. 
I appreciate and I share the enthusiasm of Derek concerning the use
of Virtual Conferencing tools but not at any cost, in all the sense of this word.  

> Cogburn uses it because it is the best available tool and there are no open source substitutes.


I do not agree with this technical analysis. In fact, I presented at PrepCom2 another
solution based on GnomeMeeting,  another aspect is that
the disability caucus has determined that Dr. Cogburn software solution does not provide 
tools for people with disabilities, while GnomeMeeting does.  
I would let the disability caucus to answer on this, because
they contacted the commercial supplier and got no answer.

> But Muguet always attempts to block it. Note that he doesn't try to get people to stop using the entire UN/ITU website because there are Adobe Acrobat and MS Word documents on it (proprietary software for which there are good open substitutes). On these transgressions of the religion,

Speaking of religion... sounds like the inquisition 


> he is silent. 

No, I am not silent on this !. I repeatedly asked the ITU people
 to provide not  only secret proprietary formats like
DOC, but open ( even though proprietary, but that's fine
with me, ADOBE is a very correct compay ) PDF format, 
and recently you may have noticed they are
using more and more HTML for documents.
So the ITU is making some progress, albeit very slow.
Yes, you are right, Milton, I would love to see the OpenOffice formats been available
on the WSIS site.   
At the PrepCom2, I was lobbying with Governemental delegations for
free interoperability. 


> Well. I have also argued for a more structured CS, but for me the 
> point is that defined rules and process enable freedom and fair 
> participation. This exchange also underlines the _dangers_ of a 
> structured CS. Some people want to set themselves up as arbiters of 
> what the rest of us can do and say.

Not all, what we need a constitution, not a dictature... 
( which does need necessarily not a constitution, while a democracy certainly does ) 
please do not make too easy and simplistic assimilation,  
Does the US constitution prevents people to have their freedom in 
your magnificent country ?
Actually the Civil Society is in the wild wild west, 
with cowboys, bounty hunters, preachers, naive pilgrims, 
all kind of people all around...


-----------------------------------------------------

>So Muguet's moral outrage was not even informed by fact. Typical.

Oh, Milton !  How could you have been so confident
in your premature judgment and
not have checked for yourself... one click too far...

when writing your name, 
I cannot help but to think about the poet
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/
and his verses...
Paradise has been lost but it can regained ! 
http://www.literature.org/authors/milton-john/paradise-regained/chapter-04.html
by the way available through
the courtesy of an OA project...

----------------------------------------------------


Thanks to all OA supporters !

Cheers !  

Francis 









 










 


-- 

------------------------------------------------------ 
Francis F. MUGUET Ph.D 

MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
Associate Publisher
http://www.mdpi.org   http://www.mdpi.net
muguet at mdpi.org       muguet at mdpi.net

ENSTA   Paris, France
KNIS lab.  Director 
"Knowledge Networks & Information Society" (KNIS)
muguet at ensta.fr   http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet

World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
Civil Society Working Groups
Scientific Information :  http://www.wsis-si.org  chair
Patents & Copyrights   :  http://www.wsis-pct.org co-chair
Financing Mechanismns  :  http://www.wsis-finance.org web

UNMSP project : http://www.unmsp.org
WTIS initiative: http://www.wtis.org
------------------------------------------------------