[ox-en] Re: Stevan Harnad * Affinities and disaffinities among free software, peer-to-peer access, and open access to peer-reviewed research
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:39:25 +0200
Hi list and Stevan!
An interesting talk - though I'm not completely happy with the
comparsion part of it. See some questions, different perspectives and
criticism below.
My general perspective is that of peer production. In my opinion Open
Access / Free Science is one example of peer production. May be
discussing this talk is a good way to shed more light on this and I
hope for comments.
5 days ago Stefan Merten wrote:
:Author: Stevan Harnad
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.
This is nice but not very relevant for a comparison. Free Software is
generally a useful *tool* for many people. But a tool can be replaced
by another tool which is suited equally well or even better. In this
sense it is nice that Free Software works as a tool here but it is not
very relevant for this analysis.
What is Open Access (OA)?
-------------------------
.. rubric:: Free online access to refereed research articles
May be it this definition where many of my disagreements come from.
For me Open Access is much more than a technical facility to obtain a
certain type of material. In particular these points come to mind:
1. Open Access as a logical extension of the basic scientific mode of
work
I remember early comments about Free Software which suggested that
Free Software can be seen as a logical extension of the basic
scientific mode of work. AFAICS external openness (i.e.
availability of material to at least the scientific community) has
always been crucial for science since Plato's idea of academia.
So Open Access as a technical mean is just an expectable reaction
to contemporary technical options to accomplish this external
openness.
But also I think that Open Access is accepted by scientists and
other actors in the field because it implements fundamental
scientific values. In this sense Open Access is very much an
obvious mean to express the standard mode of production of science.
2. A front line in the fight between making knowledge scarce or
available
One of the things which strike me most is that while Open Access
and other peer production examples come into existence at the same
time governments and other actors are setting up more and more
walls like patents, copyright extensions and the like. They try to
make scientific results scarce / commodities while the scientific
community struggles for more openness. Well, perhaps this is the
deep conflict of our times...
In this sense Open Access is an invaluable part of the bigger
movement for more peer production.
3. A way to fight the magazine crisis in science
This is probably a perspective of those paying for science but in
practice an important one nonetheless. In particular it shows that
the beneficiaries of peer production are manifold.
I'm interested in comments on particularly this perspective from
people who are more into Open Access / Free Science than me.
There are two ways to provide OA:
---------------------------------
Green OA Self-Archiving: Authors self-archive the articles they
publish in the 25,000 peer-reviewed journals
Gold OA Publishing: authors publish in one of the c. 3500 OA
http://www.doaj.org/
NB: This presentation is exclusively about providing Green OA, through
university policy reform (by mandating Green OA Self-Archiving).
Ok. Though I'd find it interesting to check the Gold OA perspective as
well.
It is *not* about Gold OA Publishing, which is in the hands of the
publishing community, not the university community.
Really? I understood that there are a number of journals who are
organized by scientists. Well, this perception is a few years old. May
be things have changed meanwhile?
The *Commonalities* and *Distinctions*
--------------------------------------
This is of course the topic I'm interested in most.
* Open Access,
* Free/Open Software
* P2P file sharing
Well, P2P file sharing IMHO can be understood as two concepts:
* Illegally copying copyrighted material (mostly music and films)
* A technology to use distributed resources (mostly disk space and net
bandwidth)
Illegally copying copyrighted material is clearly no peer production.
The P2P technology is sometimes used as a tool for Free Software and
other peer production but it is only a tool.
So in neither case P2P file sharing is about peer production. Because
of this I would not include it in this comparison.
* Open Data
Interesting example. I'll leave it out for brevity.
* Creative Commons Licensing
* Wikipedia
Otherwise an interesting list :-) .
1) :distinct:`Exception-Free Creator Give-Away?`
(Created for uptake, usage and impact alone?)
Well, "exception-free" is hard to do. For instance in continental law
you can not give up certain author's rights.
Also it remains a bit cloudy to me what this actually should mean. The
creation process of some material is not part of Stevan's definition
of OA - though I'd find it important to look at the creation process.
Also uptake and usage relate to users whereas impact relates more to
the author - right?
2) :distinct:`Peer-Revewed?`
May be we have a different understanding of peer-reviewed. May be by
peer-review you understand the fixed setting of peer-review in
science. I maintain a wider concept of peer-review. I'll get back to
this problem below.
3) :distinct:`Published?`
Well, what "published" actually means seems to be a good question. I
would think that publishing is done by putting stuff to some website
[1]_. So to provide external openness of digital goods publishing is a
precondition.
However, you, Stevan, seem to understand something different by
publishing and I'm not completely clear what it is. I'll get back to
this problem below.
.. [1] Publishers see this similar seemingly. The recent text I wrote
with StefanMz about germ form theory was ultimately not
accepted because it has been published in the Wiki before
(though I of course asked whether this is allowed...)...
4) :distinct:`Publicly Funded?`
I can't see why this is an interesting aspect. I'll leave this out
below.
5) :distinct:`Copyright Barrier?`
It would be useful to further explain what this means. In particular:
What does a barrier prevent?
6) :common:`Access to code?`
Ok - though it is probably a good question what "code" actually means
in each case.
7) :distinct:`Modifying/Remixing/"re-using" code?`
Well, a somewhat difficult category because modification and re-mixing
are quite different from re-using. I'll get back to this problem
below.
8) :distinct:`Republishing Code?`
Ok.
In the following I'll only comment those points where I disagree.
Open Access
-----------
1) Exception-Free Creator Give-Away
(Created for uptake, usage and impact alone)
Well, below you say that republishing is not allowed. So this is
hardly exception-free. But ok.
6) :common:`Access to code`
What is the "code" here? I remember that a number of scientists argued
that Open Data is needed so wouldn't this be the code?
7) :distinct:`Modifying/Remixing/"re-using" code?`
*No (refereed research article texts not to be modified or
re-mixed)*
But re-using through citations is a key concept in science. As you
pointed out a big number of citations is even one of the top goals for
Open Access. And even if not cited the knowledge from the article is
certainly re-used.
No I think you are wrong. Though I see that modification and remixing
is not part of Open Access re-using certainly is.
Free/Open Software
------------------
1) :distinct:`Exception-Free Creator Give-Away?`
(Created for uptake, usage and impact alone?)
Not all (nor most, yet)
Well, Free Software is usually governed by licenses which explicitly
state what you may do or not do with the material. In fact
republishing is allowed by probably all licenses - contrary to Open
Access.
So I really wonder what you are referring to when you say "not all". I
see nothing which allows this judgement.
2) :distinct:`Peer-Revewed?`
Most not
Hmm... May be I'll try to make my point this way: What is the goal of
peer-review? It is to maintain a certain level of quality of some
material.
Now, for scientific articles peer-review by reading it and may be by
repeating the experiments is the only way to peer-review the material.
For software (continuous) using it is also peer-review: You would not
use it if it would not meet a certain level of quality.
And in a project with several developers there is always a peer-review
at least in the sense that they use the code and notice if it breaks.
So, I would say that classical scientific peer-review can also be seen
as a result of the inherent limitations of the non-operationality of
text. To limit the concept of peer-review to this limitation to me
makes no sense.
So, no, I'd say that Free Software is peer-reviewed.
3) :distinct:`Published?`
Most not
Well, see my concerns above with the meaning of "published". Even
though there might be some some Free Software which is not published
the vast majority of Free Software *is* of course publicly available
and published by the authors.
5) :distinct:`Copyright Barrier?`
Some
What barriers do you have in mind?
Creative Commons Licensing (Books, Music, Video)
------------------------------------------------
In fact Creative Commons licenses build a whole family - and even
bigger than Free Software licenses. I think a more thorough analysis
has to distinguish the different licenses.
1) :distinct:`Exception-Free Creator Give-Away?`
(Created for uptake, usage and impact alone?)
Not all (nor most, yet)
This for instance depends largely on the particular licences. CC-BY
for instance is probably the most liberal license except public
domain.
2) :distinct:`Peer-Revewed?`
Most not
Similar points can be made as for Free Software. What is a peer-review
of a piece of music after all?
3) :distinct:`Published?`
Some
Same points as for Free Software apply: Of course it is published.
5) :distinct:`Copyright Barrier?`
Most
Depends largely on the particular licence.
6) :common:`Access to code`
The question again is what is the "code" here.
Wikipedia
---------
2) :distinct:`Peer-Revewed?`
Not
Well, Wikipedia is probably the most peer-reviewed thing on earth. All
those readers review it all the time - don't you think?
3) :distinct:`Published?`
Most not
Again the problem of the meaning of "published". In fact Wikipedia is
really unthinkable without public availability.
5) :distinct:`Copyright Barrier`
Not
Well, Wikipedia (still?) is governed by the GFDL. So depending on your
exact notion of copyright barrier there is one.
Open Access,
Free/Open Software,
P2P,
Open Data
Creative Commons Licensing
Wikipedia
Well, one of my central criticisms of this part is that comparing a
intersection of phenomenons to a single phenomenon does not make much
sense.
Anyway here is my table:
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
| |Open |Free |Creative|Wikipedia|
| |Access|Software|Commons | |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Exception-free |Yes |Yes |Depends |Yes |
| | | |on | |
| | | |variant | |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Quality |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |
|controlled | | | | |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Published |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Important usages |Yes |Yes |Depends |Yes |
|allowed by | | |on | |
|copyright | | |variant | |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Modification by |No |Yes |Depends |Yes |
|others | | |on | |
| | | |variant | |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Re-use |Yes |Yes |Yes |Yes |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
|Republishing |No |Yes |Yes |Yes |
+------------------+------+--------+--------+---------+
So even if I build the intersection the similarities are quite
impressive. If you read "Depends on variant" as "Yes" then it is even
only two aspects concerning the modification and republishing where
Open Access falls behind.
Grüße
Stefan
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