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Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Trump White House is rumored to be working on a beefed-up open access mandate. The potential executive order would require all scientific papers that are based on federally funded research to be made available online free of charge as soon as they are published. That would supersede a 2013 rule issued by the Obama White House that required federally funded papers to become freely available one year after publication.
[...]
supporters of the open access model question how much value traditional scientific publishers actually add. The peer-review process is typically carried out by working scientists on a volunteer basis. Meanwhile, you'd expect the Internet to reduce the costs of distributing scientific journals. Instead, the cost of subscribing to scientific journals has been rising much faster than inflation in recent years.
[...]
"Research funded by taxpayers should not be locked behind a paywall," one long-time ACM member tweeted.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/publishers-blast-rumored-ban-on-paywalls-for-federally-funded-research/ [arstechnica.com]

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