Well, despite the parasitic nature of the modern commercial journal world (and originally they did come from more benevolent aims, but got consumed by corporations) -- they do serve an important filtering and quality control mechanism.
A 100% open and free journal cannot achieve selectivity without having some judgement and bias applied. One that's hard for an intrepid band of volunteers to recreate without funding and full time commitment. Who will be the editors? There's also the problem of how to create a new journal that has the prestige of an old established one. Which new journal will we select to have the prestige?
But yes, they have become parasites, who prey on the free labor of eager young academics, take their work and sell access to it, enforce copyrights on knowledge created by taxpayer money, and bundle useless journals in with important ones so everyone has to pay more.
It's in the public interest for academic fields and the universities to come up with a reasonable alternative.
A 100% open and free journal cannot achieve selectivity without having some judgement and bias applied. One that's hard for an intrepid band of volunteers to recreate without funding and full time commitment. Who will be the editors? There's also the problem of how to create a new journal that has the prestige of an old established one. Which new journal will we select to have the prestige?
But yes, they have become parasites, who prey on the free labor of eager young academics, take their work and sell access to it, enforce copyrights on knowledge created by taxpayer money, and bundle useless journals in with important ones so everyone has to pay more.
It's in the public interest for academic fields and the universities to come up with a reasonable alternative.