Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#21

Post by chopin »

tma-1 wrote: post #7

I have to say, we should all be super grateful for the OSS community. There's so much free non-publicly funded continuously supported OSS available within a click of a button. I am a data scientist, and everyday I am amazed how powerful the anaconda distribution (and its over 150 included packages) is. Is there any industry on Earth that has anything like OSS?

Kind of: Take DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung) for example which sets standards used in hardware (like normed screws or normed metal alloys). Albeit not free (as in free beer) it guarantees that I can buy eg. screws with guaranteed minimal properties from different vendors. I would see this at least somehow equivalent to open source software, which can be copied at minimal marginal cost and thus is easy to provide for free (as in free beer).

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#22

Post by ikeboy »

seeing wrote: post #17

published research be available to the public no later than 12 months after publication Why wait 12 months? Why can't published research be available immediately? Does anyone know or have a citation for the rationale behind this?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ost...

"The Administration also recognizes that publishers provide valuable services, including the coordination of peer review, that are essential for ensuring the high quality and integrity of many scholarly publications. It is critical that these services continue to be made available."

Cf http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1312

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#23

Post by michaelhoffman »

seeing wrote: post #17

published research be available to the public no later than 12 months after publication Why wait 12 months? Why can't published research be available immediately? Does anyone know or have a citation for the rationale behind this?

It's because publishers are concerned that if research is available to the public immediately, institutions will stop paying extortionate fees for journal subscriptions. They have considerable lobbying efforts and several Congressmen willing to change legislation to their benefit.

Rent-seekers gonna seek rent.

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#26

Post by michaelhoffman »

roadnottaken wrote: post #25

If researchers would stop voluntarily sending their papers to private, for-profit journals then this wouldn't be an issue.

If employers and funding agencies would stop using publications in private, for-profit journals to evaluate whether researchers should get to keep their job or have their grants renewed, then this wouldn't be an issue.

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#27

Post by andrey_utkin »

mkane848 wrote: post #18
bithush wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wondered this before as well. I can't think of any industry that is as open as FOSS. There is FOSS available for literally everything you could ever want or need[0]. FOSS enabled me to learn about programming computers with zero cost (other than the hardware of course). Sure the paid closed source tools are probably "better" (usually that mostly means prettier) but it amazes me that anyone on earth can grab a…

My Counter-Strike addiction would like a word with you. Although Linux support has been getting a lot better for gaming, admittedly.

CS works just fine from Steam. On any Linux.

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#29

Post by afarrell »

rimunroe wrote: post #14
Joof wrote: post #9

I sent a letter. I really want to know how effective these mass stock-email campaigns are.

I've heard from a few people who work in politics in state and national congresses that (non-form) physical letters and phone calls from concerned constituents can have a surprising amount of weight on the decisions of congresspeople. I imagine it's less true for form emails like this, but still probably worth a go.

I think the basic way to judge this is "Is this a signal that the person who sent it is motivated to pay attention and vote based on this?"

Congresscritters care most about votes. They'll take campaign donations if thats all they can get, but they then need to figure out how to turn those campaign donations into votes.

Re: Publicly Funded Research Should Be Publicly Available

#30

Post by grondilu »

It's not so simple. Knowledge is power so you don't want to disseminate it blindly. Military weapons (including highly dangerous ones) for instance were designed with publicly funded research and yet everybody would agree that it'd be a bad idea to just publish the plans.
Post reply on HN