From: "Guédon Jean-Claude" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:49:07 -0400

I did not say that only governments subsidized research; I said that
the majority of research money comes from governments. The figure
becomes even more lopsided when research is carefully separated from
development. And when commercial labs get involved in basic research
(this is particularly true of Bell Labs which is the usual
counter-example given to contest governmental dominance of fundamental
research), they eventually find themselves repurposed to practical
matters. Wikipedia provides the details about Bell Labs:

"On August 28, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced it was pulling out of
basic science, material physics, and semiconductor research, and it
will instead focus on more immediately marketable areas, including
networking, high-speed electronics, wireless networks, nanotechnology
and software.[13]"

Of course, Bell Labs, nowadays, belongs to a French company named
Alcatel-Lucent, so it may be the fault of the French... :-)

As for Xerox Park, here is its fate, still according to Wikipedia:

"After three decades as a division of Xerox, PARC was transformed in
2002 into an independent, wholly owned subsidiary company dedicated to
developing and maturing advances in science and business concepts with
the support of commercial partners and clients."

It should be added that Xerox Park is a prime example of development
in contradistinction with research.

Joking aside, this is my point: fundamental research has been
supported by governments, most governments that had any money, in
fact, since the 17th century at least. Occasionally, for particular
reasons, fundamental research is supported in commercial labs, but
that never goes beyond a few decades at best, as in the case of Bell
Labs.

Finally, which company could ever justify to stockholders the search
for the Higgs boson? In other words, which company or companies would
be willing to foot the bill of CERN?


Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal


-----Original Message-----

From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:56:19 -0500

I think the researchers at places like Bell Labs and Xerox Park in the
past would be surprised to learn that "research has no other business
plan than subsidies" from government!

Sandy Thatcher


> From: "Guédon Jean-Claude" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:42:04 -0400
>
> There are indeed important differences between OA economic regimes on
> the Gold road (the Green road is entirely different in this regard as
> it is fully subsidized by institutions that support depositories).
> However, Jo Esposito's elaboration, after starting in the right
> direction, veers off into irrelevance questions for the issue at hand:
> while it is true that knowing who foots the bill is important, the
> embargo issue refers to a second order issue at best, the
> commercialization aspect is a third order issue, etc.
>
> Remember the basic rules:
>
> 1. Research, viewed in its entirety, necessarily includes a publishing
> phase; therefore, publishing is an integral part of research;
>
> 2. Research (as distinguished from development), i.e. fundamental
> research, is financed in great majority by governments, even in the
> USA;
>
> 3. Research has no other business plan than subsidies. In other words,
> although it has been financially viable for several centuries, it has
> never been sustainable in the business sense of the word.
>
> Conclusion:
>
> 1. Do not ask of scientific publishing to be more sustainable than research;
>
> 2. Support all scientific publishing by public subsidies;
>
> 3. Place all scientific publishing on an internationalized system of
> subsidies to ensure editorial autonomy.
>
> Any system of OA publishing that is not free to readers and to
> authors, and that does not allow re-use, mixing, redistribution, etc.,
> automatically recreates the very forms of discrimination that OA is
> supposed to remove.
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon