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A comment on Require free access to scientific articles based on taxpayer-funded research..

Re:Require free access to scientific articles based on taxpa... by asdf333 on Thursday May 24, 2012 @05:18PM (#4020623)
This was on here before, but when I signed it, it had just barely broken 4k. Great to see it already up to 15k!

I am loathe to sign political petitions b/c oftentimes its not very clear to me whether the proposed change does not have any unforeseen negative repercussions.

I can't see how this could be a bad thing. As taxpayers we are already paying for the research. Why should we have to pay a private corporation yet again (or fund the costs for our public universities to pay for them)?

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Re:Require free access to scientific articles based on taxpa... by rflrob on Thursday May 24, 2012 @05:47PM (#4020748)
It's also worth noting that the NIH has had such a policy in effect since around 2008. It's conceivable that making it universal for federally funded research would so disrupt the business model of journals that they'd collapse, but they're run by smart (if stodgy) people, and I'm sure during the phase-in they'd figure out a new business model that would work.
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