Mike Taylor is to be commended for his zeal, but there a few points on which I think he is very mistaken:
MT: "Immeasurable confusion has resulted from people proposing alternative [definitions of OA] – either through ignorance or malice."
There have definitely been attempted distortions of the definition of OA, from ignorance or malice, "
Delayed OA" being perhaps the worst of them. (OA means
immediate, permanent free online access.)
But the original
BOAI definition of OA was
elaborated into two components or degrees -- not contradicted -- by Peter Suber and myself: free online access (Gratis OA) and free online access plus various re-use rights (Libre OA).
Gratis OA is urgent, all research and researchers need it, and it's fully within reach (of mandates) already; Libre OA is not urgent, not all research and researchers need it, and it's not fully within reach already.
Libre OA advocates have unfortunately delayed and complicated the progress of Gratis Green OA as surely as publishers have, by insisting pre-emptively on Libre Gold OA:
MT: "Green articles in the RCUK sense can be encumbered by non-commercial clauses, stripping them of much of their value to the taxpayer, and can be delayed by embargoes of up to two years… So in the context of RCUK specifically, Green is virtually useless, and the only way to obtain actual open access is by paying for Gold. Which I don’t doubt is exactly what the publishers wanted. It's to RCUK's eternal shame that they rolled over and allowed this, after having made such a strong opening statement."
The term "non-commercial clauses" here refers to Libre OA re-use rights. Green OA embargoes were ratcheted up by publishers because Finch/RCUK kept treating Green as if it were "Delayed OA" and because of Finch/RCUK's readiness to pay pre-emptively for Libre Gold OA.
Green Gratis OA (free online access) is certainly not "virtually useless," and embargoes can be surmounted by the institutional repository's facilitated eprint request Button.
But this is the way Libre Gold advocates delay and complicate the progress of Gratis Green OA.
MT: "[W]e have to end to the childish notion that the value of a piece of research is dependent on what journal publishes it."
Yes. But what it does depend on is the quality standards and track-record of the journal that publishes it.
MT: "I do hope this year will see a decision made on how to implement the White House OSTP's OA recommendation, and I hope that it will elect to do this by expanding its own PubMed Central system rather than by acquiescing to land-grab attempts by either publishers (CHORUS) or libraries (SHARE)."
I hope OSTP will
not elect to mandate direct deposit in institution-external repositories but will instead mandate institutional deposit (followed by automated institution-external harvesting, inporting or exporting, where desired).
This will minimize publisher inteference (with embargoes and other constraints), engage institutions in monitoring and ensuring timely compliance with the mandate, and give institutions the incentive to adopt mandates of their own, for their non-funded output.
CHORUS should certainly be rejected, and library SHARE only accepted if it's to make institutional OA repositories more interoperable, not to allow publishers to assume the function of Green OA access-provision or archiving.
MT: "[Through Gold OA] we'll be able to save more than nine tenths of what we're spending now."
True, but this will not happen through pre-emptive pre-Green
Fools-Gold, only through
post-Green Fair-Gold.
"OA is cheaper, but that's not why it matters. What counts is not that it has lower cost, but that it has higher value."
OA does not have lower or higher cost. OA (Open Access) is about access. What will have lower cost is post-Green Fair-Gold OA.
But the real value of OA is in the access: OA maximizes research uptake, usage, applications, impact, productivity and progress, to the benefit fo research, researchers, their institutions, their funders, the R&D industry, teachers, students, journalists, and the tax-paying public that funds the research.
