OA and P2P: The Similarities and Dissimilarities

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:53:31 -0400

Here is the Quicktime Movie of:
      "On the affinities and disaffinities among free software,
      peer-to-peer access, and open access to peer-reviewed
      research."

a talk to be given by Stevan Harnad on March 26 at:
      Free Software and Beyond: The World of Peer Production

the 4th Oekonux and P2P Foundation Conference. Manchester, UK, 27-29
March 2009.

SUMMARY: Free/Open Software (notably the first Free Software for
creating OAI-compliant Open Access Institutional Repositories,
EPrints, created in 2000, distributed under the GNU license, and now
used worldwide) has been central to the growth of the Open Access
Movement. 
    However, there are also crucial distinctions that need to be made
and understood, among the movements for (1) Free/Open source
software, (2) Open Access (to peer-reviewed research), (3) P2P
file-sharing, (4) Open Data, (5) Creative Commons licensing, and (5)
Wikipedia-style collective writing. Open Access (OA) is focussed
primarily on refereed research articles. 
    The crucial distinctions revolve mostly around (a) the
fundamental difference between author giveaway vs. non-giveaway work
and (b) the functional differences between
the re-use/re-mix/re-publication needs for peer-reviewed research
article texts on the one hand, and data, software and other kinds of
digital content on the other. 
Received on Fri Mar 27 2009 - 03:54:43 GMT