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Comment by joelthelion | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this approach is that smaller universities can't afford to do this.

I think this problem needs to be adressed at funding agency level, with funding agencies requiring that all publication be made available on the agency's website.

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+1 to you, but somebody needed to make the first move, and I think most professors at smaller universities would be happy to publish wherever professors at Princeton are publishing.

In some fields, I think this may have huge impact. No math or CS journal would want to be unable to accept Princeton publications.

Even if publishers make exemptions rather than change their policies, it sets a precedent that exemptions can be made for institutional requirements.

You might be interested in a rather spirited debate with the head of the ACM here:

https://plus.google.com/117898054357703859389/posts/b783VnN4...

Why? What are the costs, aside from an http server that hosts PDFs?

The cost is that if Podunk University in Podunk, Texas adopts Princeton's policy, Elsevier and Wiley can simply decline to publish anything written by the three Ph.D.s on their faculty. That will make it difficult for Podunk to attract a fourth Ph.D., and even the three it has may choose to give up tenure there in search of someplace they can publish.

However, if a few big universities follow Princeton's lead here, that cost will disappear.

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