Time is on Whose Side?

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Thus Stevan Harnad:

"This will of course all be obvious -- belatedly but blindingly 
-- to historians in hindsight."

JE:  Great to have a prophet in our midst, but my concern is more 
that Harnad and others continue to talk about the Internet as it 
was five years ago.  The world has moved on.  Harnad talks about 
institutional repositories as though they will be with us in even 
a few years (ever hear of Software As A Service--that is, 
services like Google and Salesforce.com?); and recently we had 
Heather Morrison on this list extolling one-hour peer review. 
Reading Peter Suber's blog is like getting into a time machine 
that only runs backward.

This debate--open access vs. toll access--is, oh, so very 1990s. 
What is happening instead is that open material is being subsumed 
into broader marketing networks, whose ultimate aim is to drive 
revenue (Nature Precedings) or build brands (Harvard open access 
policy).  Better to think of open access as product sampling or 
an aspect of brand management.  Sorry, Professor Harnad, but you 
lost this one and the Internet won.

Joe Esposito