Open Access: "Gratis" and "Libre"

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 13:57:13 -0400

This is re-posted from Peter Suber's�Open Access News. (This is to
register 100% agreement on this definition of "Gratis" and "Libre"
OA, and on the new choice of terms.):

____________________________________________________________________________
      Peter Suber:
            ����Green/gold OA and gratis/libre OA

      This table is to accompany an�article�in the August issue
      of�SOAN, which I just mailed.� But I hope it will also be
      useful in its own right.� (SOAN uses plain text and
      doesn't support tables.)�


      � Gratis OA�
      (removing price barriers)Libre OA�
      (removing both price and permission barriers)
      Green OA�
      (through repositories) 12
      Gold OA�
      (through journals)3 4


      Some observations:

       o In April 2008, Stevan Harnad and I proposed some
          terms to describe two kinds of free online access:�
          the kind which removes price barriers alone and the
          kind which removes price barriers and at least some
          permission barriers as well.� The distinction is
          fundamental and widely-recognized, but we saw right
          away that our terms (weak OA and strong OA) were
          ill-chosen and we stopped using them.� However, all
          of us who work for OA and talk about OA still need
          vocabulary to describe this basic distinction.� The
          most neutral and descriptive terms I've been able to
          find so far are "gratis OA" and "libre OA", and I've
          decided use them myself until I find better ones.�
          This choice of terms is personal and provisional.�
          But to make it more effective, I wanted to explain it
          in public.
       o "Gratis" and "libre" may not be familiar terms in the
          domain of scholarly communication and OA.� But in the
          neighboring domain of free and open source software,
          they exactly�express the distinction�I have in� mind.
       o The main point of this table is to show that the
          gratis/libre distinction is not synonymous with the
          green/gold distinction.� The green/gold distinction
          is about venues.� The gratis/libre distinction is
          about user rights or freedoms.�
       o All four cells of the table are non-empty.� Green OA
          can be gratis or libre, and gold OA can be gratis or
          libre.�
       o Libre OA includes or presupposes gratis OA.� But
          neither green nor gold OA presupposes the other,
          although they are entirely compatible and much
          literature is both.
       o All four cells can contain peer-reviewed literature.�
          None of these parameters is about bypassing peer
          review.���
       o Because there are many different permission barriers
          to remove, there many different degrees or kinds of
          libre OA.� Gratis OA is just one thing, but libre OA
          is a�range�of things.�
       o The�BBB�definition describes one kind or subset of
          libre OA.� But not all libre OA is BBB OA.�
       o I'm� not proposing a change in the BBB definition,
          and I haven't retreated an inch in my support for
          it.� I'm simply proposing vocabulary to help us talk
          unambiguously about two species of free online
          access.

      This blog post is just a sketch.� For more detail, see
      the full SOAN�article.


      Peter Suber
Received on Sat Aug 02 2008 - 18:58:25 BST