From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 11:26:50 -0400

"...it should be said that no one was ever forced to submit an article
to Elsevier."

This is where I disagree, Joe, especially if "Elsevier" here stands
for "the large traditional legacy publishers". In a way your statement
is true, of course, but only in the sense that nobody was ever forced
to embark on an academic career, either, where impact factors still
rule the roost.

That is of course not Elsevier's fault, but the academic ego-system's.
The academic communication and publishing system won't truly change,
however much that is necessary for science, unless and until journals
become more communication channel than the career advancement devices
they currently are, and the cowboys of tenure, promotion, and funding
decision makers stop herding the cash cows that those journals are
straight into the publishers' corrals.

Johannes (Jan) J M Velterop



> On 28 May 2015, at 23:37, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 28 May 2015 06:34:17 -0400
>
> I don't care a fig about Elsevier one way or the other, but it should
> be said that no one was ever forced to submit an article to Elsevier.
> There are trade-offs in every business relationship.  The authors who
> work with Elsevier have made a decision that the benefits of
> Elsevier's program outweigh the negatives.  They may be wrong, but who
> would want to take that decision away from them?
>
> What we are not seeing are compelling services that attract authors
> away from Elsevier (yes, of course I am familiar with PLOS and its
> kin).  If those competing services were effective, no one would be
> railing against Elsevier.
>
> Isn't that really the point? If you want to influence or even topple
> Elsevier, how about trying to become a better publisher?
>
> Joe Esposito