Richard Poynder has done it again: In his latest essay
"Open Access: Beyond Selfish Interests"
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-access-beyond-selfish-interests.html
he characteristically takes the OA debate and developments several layers
deeper than the one at which most of the usual suspects customarily
think and reason. Not that I agree with his (implicit) conclusions
(implicit, because, being a carefully dispassionate journalist, he does
not actually express his opinions, though he most definitely has them!).
But I won't do a critique, because his essay is just too good to harry
with niggles. Read it and make up your own mind. But please remember that
Richard is not a researcher, salaried by an institution and funded by
a grant to write up his findings. In short, this is not OA writing, but
writing from which the author endeavours to earn his living. Yet Richard
is performing an invaluable service for OA, and for the history of research
communication and publication. He is taking a big risk by blogging his
writing instead of selling it to a publisher. I hope his grateful readers
will do the right thing beyond selfish interests. (Otherwise we risk
losing this splendid resource, which would be -- dare I see it --
rather like the tragedy of the commons!)
Stevan Harnad
Stevan Harnad
Received on Tue Nov 21 2006 - 01:09:10 GMT