Interesting note from your moderator: Simpson's note was sent on Jan 14, while Kuperberg's response was sent on Jan 13. From: Greg Kuperberg Subject: Re: Simpson on xxx Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 21:06:22 -0800 (PST) Carlos Simpson's article is at least as interesting as the missives from Rob Kirby and Steve Krantz. (I won't judge my own.) Let me respond to specific points: > Let me start by reacting to Kirby's letter. The way he presents it, Elsevier > doesn't seem to have much choice at all but to go kerplunk. If my reading of > general corporate culture is correct, what this translates into is to say > that their only choice is court action. Speaking as a friend of Rob Kirby, I will say that Rob is one of the most honest people that I have ever met. He has always bravely (and sometimes foolishly) spoken for the truth as he sees it. I do not always agree with him, but I do always admire him. Speaking as a participant in the xxx/Front project, I should say that Rob doesn't represent us, and his letter may or may not have been ill-considered. For the most part, I think that xxx is the kind of good idea, like the Global Positioning System or the US Interstate System, that can't die, but can only be replaced by something better. But it is true that bad circumstances can slow down its progress. I'm not sure if there is anything the commercial publishers can do to hurt the xxx math archive that's actually in their self-interest, but who knows what they will decide to do. > we should be a bit less confident in the perennity of funding; and > keeping up the whole xxx business indefinitely seems to require funding. For the record, xxx is currently funded both by DOE and by NSF. Its mandate in the grants that fund it is that it should remain completely free and open. > Will xxx(Los Alamos) publish, eg on their Chinese mirror site, an > article explaining how to use algebraic cycles and Hodge theory to > construct a public-key cryptography system? It is under no such restrictions as far as I know. The Chinese don't have to use their mirror site by the way; if web access to another mirror is too slow they can retrieve e-prints by e-mail to any mirror. Actually, I don't know of any other mathematical web site that even has a Chinese mirror site. MathSciNet doesn't. (MathSciNet isn't free either.) > as an example, one can note that > people in the know seem to have waited until the January launching of the > whole math archives to send out some preprints, whereas I for example sent > in my previous preprint to alg-geom right before christmas, not knowing > that there was much better publicity to be had at the start of january The math archive expansion committee has been working hand in hand with xxx staff to deal with this exact problem as fairly as possible. You can retrieve all alg-geom e-prints from either the Front or from the math archive at xxx. > What should one ask for? The basic idea would be to maintain a separate > (separately administered) archive of all of the algebraic topology papers. You should understand that technical dispensations come from the xxx staff. They are never going to express a preference about the future of the Hopf archive. If a proposal involves no extra work for them, then fine. If it involves a lot of extra work for them for just a few e-prints, then it won't happen, because their operation is huge and they just don't have the staff to grant numerous special favors. My position is a little different. I would like the Hopf archive to merge with xxx, but only because I care about mathematics and I am acting on what I think is right. If it doesn't happen, then at least I took a stand; I will be content with that. > One possibility > would just be to say that Clarence will send in to math.AT, all papers > which are ftp'd in for submission to the alg top archives, unless the > authors state otherwise. xxx will not accept submissions that cannot be delivered with 100% reliability. They have had very serious problems with formats that are only 99% reliable. That's why they have to take TeX source for new submissions, for example. > In return, he should get back the submissions to the math.AT archives, for > archival storage and possibly also for making available via web etc.; it > would also be good to extend this to neighboring fields as well as > everything else if he wants. xxx's data is freely available; that's how the Front exists, for example. Anyone can download, store, and redistribute new e-prints as soon as they become available to the whole world. > (3) publicity at xxx for this alternative submission/archival system > (otherwise it might fall into disuse). It's too hypothetical to discuss publicity for something that doesn't yet exist. As a rule, web sites generate their own publicity if they are useful and not otherwise. Greg