Slashdot Mirror
George Soros Funds Open-Publishing Software
blair1q writes "BBC has a story reporting that George Soros and his Open Society Institute are funding "open access" media for scientific publishing. These outlets will compete with the quasi-monopolies held by the journal industry and provide information to researchers whose institutions can't afford to subscribe to large numbers of overpriced periodicals. Part of the funding will go to improve the open-access enabling EPrints software, which is under GPL."
Sort of like how Slashdot competes with the quasi-monopolies held by the magazine industry in order to provide information to geeks who can't afford to buy magazines that check their facts, etc. :-)
Scientific journals serve a purpose, despite the rants by frustrated pseudoscientists who can't get their work published. Though the system may not work perfectly, at least they make some attempt to review articles and weed out the crap. Words like "free" and "open" and "no censorship" are not necessarily good for science, because it really just means "hey! we'll publish your manifestoes on how the world *really* works, even if those self-proclaimed scientist types keep telling you to talk to a psychologist..."
Technical Writer?
As a grad student, I would love for this happen...as long as standards don't fall the the wayside. If Soros could get free journals with peer review, I'd support it with every ounce of my body. My university pays up the nose for journals and every year I read about how some journals need to be cut to meet the budget.
In fact, I've often wondered why universities pay an outrageous institutional price for the journals, when an individual can pay a lower price (albeit still exorbitant).
This is one of the true monopolies I would love to see end.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
Dunno about you, but the last few major scientific releases have been first through a journal then to the world. Successful cloning, stem cell research, and most recently the artificial womb.
Right now, there's increasing pressure for scientists to close themselves off, mainly coming from their employers (companies).
What's happening to science is what happened to software. At first, the source was available, because the supplier didn't know if you could run the binaries and besides, you probably could help improve the code as well. Then, Ma Bell shut off the flow of source and caused the balkanization of Unices. After that, almost all software was binary for a particular platform.
Science started with open information sharing, and is perilously progressing towards a proprietarization of knowledge. Trade secrets are becoming more popular than patents because secrets are more protected. (Trade secrets are highly protected as long as no one else figures out how to do what you can do independantly, whereas patents are open to public inspection and expire. )
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
To let people know the costs of some of these journals, here are a couple of sites to look at.
First, a general overview of costs in the mid-90s (done in 2000, so just imagine how expensive they are now!) can be found here.
A more recent review of chemistry journals can be found here. It is amazing to think that some of these journals cost ~$4.50 a page (neuroscience journals are even more expensive!).
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
Problem is that number of publications says nothing about quality.
I have not read a journal publication in the journal for at least five years. I generally read articles as pre-publication preprints or from the author's web site. If the only publication is in dead tree form it might as well not exist in my field.
The problem that online journals have faced is that it takes some time for an online journal to establish prestige and hence attract the type of publication that generates prestige.
Another problem has been that the HTML browser folk were never interested in implementing the HTML math markup which has left scientific publication to pdf form which is pretty useless as a dialogue medium. I can't cut and paste and equation from pdf to mathematica as MathML would allow.
What I would like to see is the rise of different modes of academic publishing that take advantage of the electronic mode. I would like to see enterprises that are structured in the manner of a dictionary or encyclopeadia, providing a systematic and structured description of the state of the art in a particular field as a whole.
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>
> Obviously I am not the Ayn Rand fan I once was.
Not necessarily. I, too, respect Soros, both for his trading skills and for what he's decided to do with his money now that he's earned it.
But I'd think that even the hardest-core Randroid could appreciate what Soros is doing.
1) He made his money. It's his. It pleases him to do this with his money, and who is anyone else to say he ought to do otherwise?
2) The other simple argument: Soros values the recipients (scientists) of his generosity. It is appropriate for him (in the Randroid sense) to help them.
3) If it's productive virtue that buys self-respect and happiness, and Soros wants to see science done, then this is a way of producing more with his money than he could otherwise produce. He's got enough to satisfy his material needs (and the needs of those for whom he cares) for the rest of his life. Sure, he could probably make a few billion more, but those would be just bits in a database somewhere. Instead, he chooses to use it - to produce something of value (more scientists, by reducing the cost of "becoming a scientist"), and in return, has the satisfaction of knowing that the things (ideas, discoveries, theories, technologies) the scientists go on to build were things he (as a nonscientist) would never have been able to build himself.
If that isn't fair, mutually-beneficial trade, I don't know what is.
(Or to put it another way, producing demand is easy, but boring -- he could spend billions on toys like tourist trips to the Space Station, an OC-192 and 50" plasma display to every room in each of his houses, and he'd probably be bored after the orgy of spending was complete. But producing supply - new scientists to develop space hotels, OC-192s for $50 and 3D holographic displays - is hard. He's chosen to do the hard, but rewarding, thing.)
What makes Soros different, how he stands aside from the other giants is in his thoughtful, abstract approach to the mechanisms of profit, and the rise and fall of economies.
His "public works" have taken place throughout his career, not merely as an afterthought. He appears to be quite intelligent, and seems to surround himself with intelligent, critical advisors. Most of his oddball adventures and forays in Europe have been profitable, or at least, had the intention of bringing back some compensation, but there seems to be a broader plan at work.
A naive western observer might see the Hand of Soros offering charity and kindness to a world that desperately needs his help. The natives who've endured his schemes probably see him as a standard-model Ugly American, his interference in their culture and economies don't seem to be quite as welcome as advertised. He appears to regret (sincerely?) the harm he's caused, but his answer seems to be... try new schemes. He quite baldly treats Economics as an Experimental and not a Theoretical science. He seems to take the broad perspective, in his field, that a Machievelli took in the realm of Renaissance politics, though he's had far more success.
I suspect history will look on him with more interest than his contemporaries do; he's one of the most influential single humans on Earth today, but tries to work stealthily and quietly. Whether they will approve or disapprove... ultimately depends on who gets to write those histories.
First, nothing begins if not opening