IEEE vs Open Source

That's a false dichotomy.

For example, one of my clients is a software company that charges a lot of money for its products; but they pay me to work on open-source software that is used as part of the infrastructure for their products. Although my work also benefits my client's competitors who use the same infrastructure software, apparently there is still a good business case for doing it this way.

Your work probably doesn't really benefit the competition. For that to happen, their software engineers would have to drop their NIH attitudes and begin tracking your every move. Consider, if they're sufficiently unskilled that they don't have an NIH attitude, and such an approach seems better than writing their own programs, they aren't sufficiently skilled to follow your open-source work and modify it for incorporation into their own software. They'll have a massive c*ck-up in the attempt.

According to Russell J Lefevre who is running for IEEE-USA President-Elect, "There are two major issues facing IEEE_USA members in the next few years; responses to globalization and to new "Open Source" publications that threaten the financial health of IEEE and IEEE-USA."

I don't quite understand what this issue means. Is this about whether I have to pay IEEE for papers or get them for free? What benefit do I get from paying IEEE for information? Do the authors get some benefit?

Thanks

Paul C

The benefit you get is that the papers are reviewed and published so others may learn something. The authors even pay to have their papers published. Someone has to pay for the paper, for the computers, for the distribution, for the edits, for the buildings that house these and more stuff than I can imagine.

What have you given away for free? What medium did you use?

Al

Hello Paul,

You have to pay for the papers or obtain an IEEE-Explore subscription. Most of the IEEE publications are so low in volume that the cost per copy is enormous. Just imagine what a Chevy Suburban would cost if they only made 1000 per year.

The benefit you get is knowledge.

The authors don't get paid, at least I never did. Not even the travel expenses when I had to present at conferences. There is the opposite trend that Al mentioned and it is very disturbing: It has been suggested that authors pay for their publications. That would seriously gravitate the whole world of such scientific publishing towards the big ivy league institutions where funding is heavy. The little guy especially in developing countries will be cut off. Not a good thing at all.

Regards, Joerg

Well, Open Source etc certainly threatens the financial health of companioes like Microsoft. Clearly giving stuff away for free - good stuff like Linux - is a Commie plot to destroy the American Way.

snip

Things are changing.

A friend has a small website, pointing to specialist UK shops (not p*rn). He gets a very small payment (AKA a pitance) for each click from his site that ends in a purchase from the redirection. It pays for his ISP fees's etc. He does little work on it, it just breaks even. With a bit more effort he could do a lt more.

I'm not IEEE paid up etc, but are they stuck in the dark ages, like the UK's BSI? If they are they are dead as the proverbial dodo.

The google "mini_ad_things" could probably pay for the IEEE, everyone could access to get excellent papers, the authors would become better known, and more work/commissions.

(disclaimer, I'm not an MBA either, so make your own conclusions)

martin

Joerg,

I don't disagree with recovering the cost, especially on short runs of print publications.

But, what justifies the fees charged to download documents like the standards, especially when one is already a dues-paying member at nearly $200/year? I recall some time back having to pay to download specs for V.35 for cryin' out loud. (Not much as I recall, but it was so old that it should have been gratis to Communications Society members.)

The last time I looked at prices to download *recent* specs in the 802 tree, they were outrageous ($100's, IIRC). (I know they started releasing older versions for free a few years back.) If the authors pay their own way to the committee meetings, what cost is there to the IEEE aside from the layout and administrative overhead?

It seems too much like IEEE is in the money-making business, not in the standards and professional society business...

My two cents, Richard

IEEE is a country club. They need money to maintain the greens, pay the handsome cabana boy and pay off the people who smuggle in Cuban cigars.

They are whining because more engineers are interested in working with open-source, freely-distributed projects and publications than with bureacracy. For almost anybody not working on a government contract, the world has evolved past IEEE's mentality (which has little to do with science and much to do with the aforementioned country club attitude).

This is an exaggeration but not by much. Really, what it boils down to is that they never previously had any need to compete, but now other sources have at least as much mainstream credibility, if not more. So IEEE is being forced to rethink its business model (and maybe go from an 18-hole to a 9-hole course in the process), which hurts.

How is Open Source a threat to any of this unless, it provides some sort of peer review and copyright or copyleft protections? Open Source has to be something more official than just posting crap on your web page. The only difference Isee is the information is posted free on the web like application notes instead of having to pay for the IEEE reprint. I have paid for papers but I turn to free information on the web first and I don't see why I should support some plan to make free info harder to find.

Paul C

Maybe the ad route is good idea. They should at least make more of their papers available to their basic members. You can be a member and try to get a paper and find you need 'more' membership to look at it. They all talk about cutting the costs of membership but they could do more to make the membership worth the money.

Paul C

My question was IEEE vs Open Source. If there is an open source publishing alternative that is cheaper for the author and gets me to the knowledge cheaper and easier why shouldn't I support that over IEEE.

Paul C

"ad mortem"! I love it!

...Jim Thompson

Not quite sure if this question is valid

What about peer review in an Open Source system?

martin

I don't see how it's any worse for Bill Gates to do that than the Red Hats, Fedoras, Linspires, and others than presently do... and Bill Gates employs one heck of a lot more people and pas a lot more taxes than Red Hat does!

Hello Paul,

Well, sure. It's a free market just like any other market. If open source is available most of us would naturally gravitate towards it. If authors are required to pay to finance most of it that will reduce the supply side though. So concentrating too much on open source might cut you off from part of the pie.

Then there is the "self published paper" or whatever you want to call it: Via the web. It would cost me next to nothing to publish something on our web site and some people do that. It would cost readers nothing extra to read that. However, most of those papers will not be peer-reviewed so readers have to be more careful. But there are excellent papers to be found that way, many of them on web sites of our fellow posters right here.

Regards, Joerg

And the sad, ironic thing is that the GNU General Public License makes it legal for Bill Gates to slap a Windoze eye candy GUI on top of a Linux core, and make money selling it.

But I surmise that he's about as likely to clue up as the Bush cabal.

Cheers! Rich

I read in sci.electronics.design that Joerg wrote (in ) about 'IEEE vs Open Source', on Tue, 13 Sep 2005:

Maybe somebody with more time and resources than I have will find a way of getting credible peer reviews done on the Web. After all, almost all s.e.d. articles are peer-reviewed, often ad nauseam or even ad mortem.

snip

Just had some UK friends over to stay in my new spanish house. The room at the back( washing m/c etc) has just been renamed "the futility room"

martin