Me: but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay
Hopethishelps: This, however, doesn't add so much value. You could almost automate the selection function of editors - let the reviewers give articles a score, a bit like Slashdot.
Absolutely untrue. Editors make tough calls all the time that are not entirely in line with what reviewers say. Reviewers are not only knowledgable about the topic, but they often do research in this area and the research that they review may directly contradict their results. Reviewers will have strong opinions and they are not always firmly grounded in a pure unemotional and rational context.
Moreover, editors are often more senior researchers in the field and have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Their role is not just ot make publish/reject decisions but also help authors at the margin to address reviewers detailed comments (i've submitted 12 page single spaced reviews for manuscripts just about twice as long) and guide good and important results to publication.
hopethishelps: Copy editors for academic journals do nothing - authors do the proofreading.
If you ever say an original submission of a mansucript from a researcher (at least in my field), you would recognize this as absurd. Copy editors are amazingly helpful and authors suck at doing publication level proofreading of their work.
Ok, as someone who has received funding from NIH and who has also worked with various journals, I think that encouraging the wider dissemination of research is very good. I also think that there are publishers that are dangerously close to owning most of the publication outlets for many fields (Elsevier for one...) and that libraries are feeling the pinch. This is a bad thing.
I will also note that Journals, whether owned by commercial companies or produced by scientific societies perform many services that cost money and legitimately should be renumerated. Scientific research does not stop at data collection but the results must be vetted by your peers (i.e., peer review). An editor for a journal must select some number of reviewers, distribute the papers to the reviewers, read the returned reviews, make a publish/reject but resubmit/reject decision, then, if accepted, hand it off to the copy editors, etc. Many of us act as reviewers for free but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay and the scientific process benefits from their efforts. Moreover, archiving and preserving electronic access essentially forever will cost someone some money. The devil in the details is that we need to make sure that there is room for some revenue to support these things.
Uhm... Ok, so technological advance just not moving fast enough for you? Wow, tough crowd.
Lets all take a deep breath and be a bit less jaded here.
Here we have not one but two techniques for creating a substance that is, pound for pound (oh, if only...) one of the most expensive around and doing it cheaply. And, by appearances, these methods are currently producing the diamonds.
Talk about disruptive technologies, De Beers appears to be sh*tting their pants.
If they are actually selling the product, that doesn't sound like vaporware to me.
With so many Indians in the software industry already, maybe we will start seeing some more great open source software come from India.
I think that this is absolutely correct. Often there are comments about how multiple projects can result in a dilution of the efforts of developers. For example, the earlier discussion about Gnome/KDE often had such a comment about how having these two different desktops is inefficient because X number of developers are now split among two different projects.
What will be really interesting is to watch the kinds of new projects that start showing up in places like sourceforge that reflect this growing interest.
While many people have concerns about the broader implications of developments in India and China (e.g., downward pressure on salaries), from the perspective of the communal effort that is open source development, more (vastly more!) eyes could have an incredible influence on the quality and rate of development.
Actually... if you check out halloween 7, you will see that this was foreshadowed. Indeed, the brush up with SCO has every sign of being just an opening skirmish in a long battle.
Note Eric Raymond's comment in the intro to Halloween 7 -
"The risk that Microsoft will go on a patent-lawsuit rampage, designed more to scare potential open-source users than to actually shut down developers, is substantial. The language about "concrete actions" in relation to IPR has the same ominous feel that the talk of "de-commoditizing protocols" did in Halloween I and II."
This is partly based on the following comment within the Halloween doc:
"Linux patent violations/risk of being sued" struck a chord with US and Swedish respondents. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans and 82% of Swedes stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux. This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience."
Slashdot Mirror
Me: but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay
Hopethishelps: This, however, doesn't add so much value. You could almost automate the selection function of editors - let the reviewers give articles a score, a bit like Slashdot.
Absolutely untrue. Editors make tough calls all the time that are not entirely in line with what reviewers say. Reviewers are not only knowledgable about the topic, but they often do research in this area and the research that they review may directly contradict their results. Reviewers will have strong opinions and they are not always firmly grounded in a pure unemotional and rational context.
Moreover, editors are often more senior researchers in the field and have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Their role is not just ot make publish/reject decisions but also help authors at the margin to address reviewers detailed comments (i've submitted 12 page single spaced reviews for manuscripts just about twice as long) and guide good and important results to publication.
hopethishelps: Copy editors for academic journals do nothing - authors do the proofreading.
If you ever say an original submission of a mansucript from a researcher (at least in my field), you would recognize this as absurd. Copy editors are amazingly helpful and authors suck at doing publication level proofreading of their work.
Ok, as someone who has received funding from NIH and who has also worked with various journals, I think that encouraging the wider dissemination of research is very good. I also think that there are publishers that are dangerously close to owning most of the publication outlets for many fields (Elsevier for one...) and that libraries are feeling the pinch. This is a bad thing.
I will also note that Journals, whether owned by commercial companies or produced by scientific societies perform many services that cost money and legitimately should be renumerated. Scientific research does not stop at data collection but the results must be vetted by your peers (i.e., peer review). An editor for a journal must select some number of reviewers, distribute the papers to the reviewers, read the returned reviews, make a publish/reject but resubmit/reject decision, then, if accepted, hand it off to the copy editors, etc. Many of us act as reviewers for free but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay and the scientific process benefits from their efforts. Moreover, archiving and preserving electronic access essentially forever will cost someone some money. The devil in the details is that we need to make sure that there is room for some revenue to support these things.
My two cents.
Uhm... Ok, so technological advance just not moving fast enough for you? Wow, tough crowd.
Lets all take a deep breath and be a bit less jaded here.
Here we have not one but two techniques for creating a substance that is, pound for pound (oh, if only...) one of the most expensive around and doing it cheaply. And, by appearances, these methods are currently producing the diamonds.
Talk about disruptive technologies, De Beers appears to be sh*tting their pants.
If they are actually selling the product, that doesn't sound like vaporware to me.
With so many Indians in the software industry already, maybe we will start seeing some more great open source software come from India.
I think that this is absolutely correct. Often there are comments about how multiple projects can result in a dilution of the efforts of developers. For example, the earlier discussion about Gnome/KDE often had such a comment about how having these two different desktops is inefficient because X number of developers are now split among two different projects.
What will be really interesting is to watch the kinds of new projects that start showing up in places like sourceforge that reflect this growing interest.
While many people have concerns about the broader implications of developments in India and China (e.g., downward pressure on salaries), from the perspective of the communal effort that is open source development, more (vastly more!) eyes could have an incredible influence on the quality and rate of development.
As we do not get access to many news site in China, I very happy to read this story on here.
Hmmm, apparently endless SCO rants and bamboo bicycles is not the type of subversive speech that the Chinese government feels is worth blocking.
Welcome to slashdot!
Actually... if you check out halloween 7, you will see that this was foreshadowed. Indeed, the brush up with SCO has every sign of being just an opening skirmish in a long battle. Note Eric Raymond's comment in the intro to Halloween 7 - "The risk that Microsoft will go on a patent-lawsuit rampage, designed more to scare potential open-source users than to actually shut down developers, is substantial. The language about "concrete actions" in relation to IPR has the same ominous feel that the talk of "de-commoditizing protocols" did in Halloween I and II." This is partly based on the following comment within the Halloween doc: "Linux patent violations/risk of being sued" struck a chord with US and Swedish respondents. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans and 82% of Swedes stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux. This was the only message that had a strong impact with any audience."