commit e988524cf882aecececeb3e52f3abd6758c05f36
parent 0c895d25be27693cd8ecf742305673984e07dfd1
Author: Sebastiano Tronto <sebastiano@tronto.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2023 08:33:36 +0100
Added blog post
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diff --git a/src/blog/2023-01-11-aaron-swartz/aaron-swartz.md b/src/blog/2023-01-11-aaron-swartz/aaron-swartz.md
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+# Aaron Swartz
+
+[Aaron Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz) passed away
+ten years ago, at the age of 26. During his short life he contributed
+to multiple projects, including
+[Creative Commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons),
+[RSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS),
+[Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) and
+[reddit](https://www.reddit.com).
+
+If you are interested in learning more about Aaron's life,
+you can watch the biographical documentary
+[*The Internet's Own Boy*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy),
+which is freely available online. You can also still access
+[Aaron's website](http://www.aaronsw.com) and read
+[his old blog posts](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog).
+
+I don't want to write a long post about Aaron's life.
+Instead, I'll take this chance to talk about
+[Open Access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access), which was
+one of Aaron's main battles as an activist. I'll try to be concise
+and go straight to the point.
+
+A word of warning: even though I pledged not to write "political" posts
+in this blog, I do have a strong opinion on this subject, and I won't
+try to hide it.
+
+## Open access
+
+Most academic journals make scientific articles available at very high
+prices, making them practically unaccessible for people who are not
+affiliated with a university in a wealthy country. To make things worse,
+the people involved in producing these articles - the scientists who
+write them and those who review them - do not get any revenue from this.
+
+This system made sense before the Internet, when distributing journals
+actually required some effort. The only reasons academics rely on it
+nowadays are prestige and having their work reviewed. The latter is a
+necessary step for science, and not many peer-reviewed journals offer
+open access.
+
+I believe the existence of academic journals that do not offer open access
+is unacceptable in the present day. As Aaron Swartz wrote in his 2008
+[*Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto*](./goam.txt), sharing knowledge is
+a moral imperative. I do stand by this principle.
+
+The *Manifesto* may have had little practical
+consequnces, but it has probably inspired
+[Alexandra Elbakyan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Elbakyan)
+to create [Sci-Hub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub) in 2011.
+Sci-Hub is an online repository that gives free access to millions
+of research papers. This is of course illegal in most countries, but
+for many people it is the only way to access this material. For legal
+reasons the website is forced to change domain from time to time, but
+it is currently accessible at [sci-hub.ru](https://sci-hub.ru).
+
+Thanks to the Internet we could all have easy access to an incredible
+amount of knowledge, but some of it is still locked behind a paywall.
+I am hopeful this will change, and the people who fought against this
+system will be remembered as heroes, not criminals. But the path to get
+there is still long.
+
+## Eulogy
+
+
+*Aaron is dead.*
+
+
+*Wanderers in this crazy world,*
+
+*we have lost a mentor, a wise elder.*
+
+
+*Hackers for right, we are one down,*
+
+*we have lost one of our own.*
+
+
+*Nurtures, careers, listeners, feeders,*
+
+*parents all,*
+
+*we have lost a child.*
+
+
+*Let us all weep.*
+
+ -- [Tim Berners-Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee)
diff --git a/src/blog/2023-01-11-aaron-swartz/goam.txt b/src/blog/2023-01-11-aaron-swartz/goam.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
+
+Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
+themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries
+in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of
+private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
+sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
+
+There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought
+valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure
+their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But
+even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future.
+Everything up until now will have been lost.
+
+That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their
+colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them?
+Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to
+children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable.
+
+"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they
+make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal —
+there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's
+already being done: we can fight back.
+
+Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been
+given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world
+is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for
+yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords
+with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
+
+
+
+Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been
+sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by
+the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
+
+But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or
+piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a
+ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only
+those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
+
+Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate
+require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they
+have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who
+can make copies.
+
+There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the
+grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public
+culture.
+
+We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with
+the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need
+to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific
+journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open
+Access.
+
+With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the
+privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
+
+Aaron Swartz
+
+July 2008, Eremo, Italy
diff --git a/src/blog/blog.md b/src/blog/blog.md
@@ -3,6 +3,10 @@
[RSS Feed](feed.xml)
+## 2023
+
+* 2023-01-11 [Aaron Swartz](2023-01-11-aaron-swartz)
+
## 2022
* 2022-12-30 [Getting my blog ready for 2023](2022-12-30-blog-ready)
diff --git a/src/blog/feed.xml b/src/blog/feed.xml
@@ -9,6 +9,13 @@ Thoughts about software, computers and whatever I feel like sharing
</description>
<item>
+<title>Aaron Swartz</title>
+<link>https://sebastiano.tronto.net/blog/2023-01-11-aaron-swartz</link>
+<description>Aaron Swartz</description>
+<pubDate>2023-01-11</pubDate>
+</item>
+
+<item>
<title>Getting my blog ready for 2023</title>
<link>https://sebastiano.tronto.net/blog/2022-12-30-blog-ready</link>
<description>Getting my blog ready for 2023</description>
