According to a 2005 Russian law, certain government information and national standards must be OA on a government web site. But the key agency is not complying and appears to have ties to businesses which have been selling the same information to the public. Last month, a new cabinet decree clarified the law (spelling out OA as access that is "free of charge") and a private institute is pushing for its enforcement.
The Institute for Information Freedom Development (IIFD) fighting for the state standards to be available in the internet has managed to persuade the Russian government in its rightness. On the eve of the New Year’s holidays the decree of the RF cabinet of ministers setting the procedure to publish the national standards on the site of the Federal Agency for Metrology and Technical Regulation (Rostehregulirovanie) has been enforced....However, the officials do not intend to give up.
The Decree contains the item in accordance with which Rostehregulirovanie ‘has to publish the standards on the official site of the Federal Agency for Metrology and Technical Regulation on a regular basis and free of charge’....
The institute hopes if will be hard for the officials to question the official document. ‘The public servants, who are used to selling the state standards, have no loopholes this time, as the document highlights the access should be free of charge. The term ‘open access’ left some room for manoeuvre. However, now many will have to accept the fact that their profitable business exists no longer’, - Ivan Pavlov says....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/16/2008 09:14:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
