[Linux-aus] Grant application to Linux Australia for Aletheia
Linux Australia President
president at linux.org.au
Fri Jun 23 10:19:18 AEST 2017
A courtesy note to indicate that community feedback on this application
is due 4th July and is scheduled for discussion at Council meeting 7th
July,
Kind regards,
Kathy
On 20/06/17 17:27, Kade Morton via linux-aus wrote:
> Hi Rowland,
>
> More than happy to run through to help the application process.
>
> We've not yet approached funding bodies outside of technology for a
> few reasons (but will down the track). One reason being it's hard to
> explain a decentralised and distributed database and what it can be
> used for to most people outside of tech, but the main reason is that a
> lot of bodies like NHMRC generally only fund research.
>
> One researcher we've spoken to was telling us about issues between the
> two main funding bodies in their field, they were working on
> pacemakers. The bio mechanical body rejected them because they felt
> medical devices should be funded by the medical body and the medical
> body rejected them because they felt physical devices should be funded
> by the bio mechanic body. The project (open sourcing pacemaker designs
> to drive down costs) has stalled without funding. NHMRC and the like
> have very narrow criteria for funding, for something like Aletheia to
> even be considered for funding you would need to have the application
> up and running to sway assessors and we aren't at that stage yet.
>
> When we are though, we will be approaching university libraries (the
> department at the university that bares the paywall cost) to run nodes
> and we're already reaching out to researchers who are vocally
> anti-paywall to generate a small amount of content on the network.
> With some content and university libraries running nodes we can then
> approach funding bodies that otherwise would not have looked at us.
>
> I agree one of the perpetuating forces of paywalls is that researchers
> need to publish in high impact journals for funding and promotions,
> this is a social problem. Due to their exclusivity though not all
> researchers do publish in high impact journals, and then you have some
> that don't publish in them on principle. That's our target demographic
> to begin with while we socialise our reputation system with the
> community. We've been working Peita Lin, an economic behaviourist who
> used to work on human behaviour in financial events like runs on the
> banks to build our reputation system. Most open access journals have
> the impact problem and because of this people don't often submit to
> them, they don't generate profit (off submission fees) and they go out
> of business. We need plurality in open access and a transparent
> reputation system that shows your complete history is a more
> scientific way of going about rankings than simply throwing around
> high impact names, we think it will appeal to researchers and catch
> on. One of the current academics on our team has our reputation system
> as their niche of the project. Over time we think we can make inroads
> into these problems by popularising this new standard.
>
> On the single point of failure I don't want to detract from the work
> people do to make sure websites have low downtime but I still think
> this is a big plus we have. We've designed Aletheia under the
> assumption it will be attacked. You install the client which comes
> bundled with a none on your machine, once the network is up and
> running that will mean the network will have nodes in multiple legal
> jurisdictions and to distrupt the network you would need to compromise
> or take down a critical number of nodes. This should be a tall order
> to accomplish. Plus the network is administered by the community
> rather than a central person or body meaning removal of key people
> won't hamper the network.
>
> Reason we've designed the network this way is it's often not gone well
> for people working in this space. Aaron Swartz was brought up on
> felony charges and Alexandra Elbakyan has an active extradition order
> hanging over her head. Also, it might seem like a stretch that a
> nation state would attempt to attack a scientific journal but I'd
> argue it's not. The current U.S. administration has put out statements
> that they would take down climate science databases and there is
> currently a movement to mirror as much climate data as possible in the
> (unlikely but possible) event this does happen. I spoke to Nick Santos
> who started the climate mirror movement and offered Aletheia as an
> open source, decentralised and distributed mirror once we're on our
> feet. I wholeheartedly appreciate websites can easily be architected
> for high availability, but there isn't a lot that can be done if
> you're served a legal takedown order. Our network is designed with
> that eventuality in mind. This is also our jumping off point for what
> we can offer past academic publishing once we demonstrate the software
> works.
>
> I think the social impact our technical aspects could have are being
> understated as well. Being a DAO and community run it could be that
> Aletheia really takes off with citizen scientists and become a premier
> platform for them. The transparency around funding we have by default
> might spur other open access journals to adopt similar methods. I want
> to stress that we are very eyes wide open to the social norms,
> traditions, rituals and "we've always done it this way" mentality in
> academic publishing and I think we have a strong case to, as I said,
> make inroads into those problems. But also I think we have a strong
> case to at the same time run counter to these social norms and
> practices by providing a vastly different and free service to what's
> out there currently, appeal to the element of the academic community
> that's predisposed to us by being anti-paywall, build our community
> that way. It places us in a strong position to further the existing
> conversation around these social problems, why they exist and what can
> be done about them.
>
> I wasn't aware of the European Comission's pending decision, the below
> is the news I've had my eye on the last few days:
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/dramatic-statement-european-leaders-call-immediate-open-access-all-scientific-papers
> Unfortunately I'm quite skeptical about it due to the revenue very
> profitable publishers stand to lose, I imagine there will be heavy
> lobbying to reverse this which is why I'm passionate about open source
> contributing to this issue in a positive way. The current system of
> paywalls was given to us by companies and governments, I don't think
> companies and governments are going to change that system anytime soon
> while it remains as lucrative as it is.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kade Morton
>
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Grant application to Linux Australia for
>> Aletheia
>> Local Time: June 19, 2017 10:06 PM
>> UTC Time: June 19, 2017 12:06 PM
>> From: rowland.mosbergen at gmail.com
>> To: Kade Morton <kademorton at protonmail.com>
>> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>,
>> council at linux.org.au <council at linux.org.au>
>>
>> I just saw this on Twitter and thought it would be worth sharing:
>> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170404/09344237080/european-commission-may-join-gates-foundation-wellcome-trust-becoming-open-access-publisher.shtml
>>
>> One of Europe's biggest science spenders could soon branch out into
>> publishing. The European Commission, which spends more than €10
>> billion annually on research, may follow two other big league
>> funders, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
>> and set up a "publishing platform" for the scientists it funds, in an
>> attempt to accelerate the transition to open-access publishing in Europe.
>>
>>
>> El 19 jun. 2017 17:27, "Rowland Mosbergen"
>> <rowland.mosbergen at gmail.com <mailto:rowland.mosbergen at gmail.com>>
>> escribió:
>>
>> Thanks for the feedback Kade.
>>
>> The biggest concern that I see for researchers on a year to year
>> basis is the ability to increase the probability for the NHMRC,
>> ARC and other funding bodies to fund their work. This is directly
>> tied into the papers they publish, where they publish and their
>> citation record (among other things). I think it would be
>> interesting to know how you are approaching the funding bodies
>> and their reactions to your ideas. I think without this your
>> technical fix would not be sustainable.
>>
>> While some of the technical discussions you mentioned I think are
>> interesting technically, in my opinion they aren't even close to
>> the priority that is needed on the same level as the communty
>> issues.
>>
>> For example:
>>
>> * websites can easily be architected for high availability (we
>> do this ourselves),
>> * PlosOne has all it's content protected by CC-BY
>> <http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright> and
>> * PlosOne has an impact factor (3.057 in 2015
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLOS_ONE>)
>>
>>
>> Not that Aletheia isn't a cool idea. I just want to ensure that
>> we can tease out the pros and cons to allow the Linux Australia
>> community to work out if this fits into their funding model.
>>
>> Whatever the outcome I think you are raising this issue at the
>> right time as it's a hot topic in research.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Rowland.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 4:53 PM, Kade Morton
>> <kademorton at protonmail.com <mailto:kademorton at protonmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Rowland,
>>
>> Thanks for the below. We've consulted pretty widely with
>> researchers here in Aus and overseas (two of the people on
>> our team currently publish academic papers in their fields
>> and we're working with a group Jon Tennant is involved with
>> that are publishing a thesis around a better peer review
>> process, our peer review process is going to be build around
>> their findings). If it strengthens the application I can list
>> out the different researchers and groups we've spoken with.
>>
>> I'd contend we do need a technical fix to paywalls along with
>> a community fix and we're looking to address both.
>> F1000Research, PLOS ONE and others are great, even Sci-Hub if
>> you feel adventurous, but I think we have some positives over
>> existing solutions.
>>
>> * Websites are a single point of failure, they can fall
>> over through neglect or malicious actors. Aletheia is a
>> decentralised and distributed database, no single point
>> of failure.
>> * Open access journals and preprint archives can be bought
>> out by larger paywall journals. Aletheia is under a GNU
>> Lesser General Public License v3.0, Elsevier is not
>> buying us.
>> * Open access journals charge for submissions, it's free to
>> submit to Aletheia. We're looking at how the platform can
>> be monetised but it won't be through submission of or
>> access to content.
>> * You can't see what open access journals spend their money
>> on, we publish our financial records.
>> * Open Access journals often die because they don't make
>> profit, we're community run so as long as we have enough
>> community nodes the contents of Aletheia is stored forever.
>> * Open Access journals don't have publishing impact factor.
>> We won't either, but we're building a reputation system
>> based on submitted articles, peer review articles (our
>> platform handles peer review), community participation
>> and some other factors. This transparent reputation score
>> is your contribution academia so we're looking to turn
>> that into publishing impact factor once we are well
>> established.
>> * The community doesn't have a say in how open access
>> journals are run usually, they are a bit of a block box.
>> The community runs Aletheia as a decentralised autonomous
>> organisation.
>> * Open access aren't not open source, you can audit all our
>> code, look at how we are storing papers and data sets, etc.
>> * There has been little innovation in academic publishing
>> since journals were established in the 16th centry. The
>> only real change is the journals now have websites and
>> databases. I think looking at doing something different
>> in this space is worth the effort just for the
>> exploration alone, and I'd rather open source communities
>> do that exploring over corporations because if a better
>> way is hit on it should be open from the start.
>> * A decentralised and distributed database administered as
>> a DAO has applications past scientific publishing, we
>> want to prove it works in this space and then move into
>> other areas.
>>
>> I'm not sure if this covers all your concerns, we have a
>> white paper covering Aletheia's features if you're
>> interested,
>> https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-whitepaper/blob/master/WHITE-PAPER.md
>> <https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-whitepaper/blob/master/WHITE-PAPER.md>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kade Morton
>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] Grant application to Linux
>>> Australia for Aletheia
>>> Local Time: June 19, 2017 3:36 PM
>>> UTC Time: June 19, 2017 5:36 AM
>>> From: rowland.mosbergen at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:rowland.mosbergen at gmail.com>
>>> To: Kade Morton <kademorton at protonmail.com
>>> <mailto:kademorton at protonmail.com>>
>>> linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
>>> <mailto:linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>
>>> <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
>>> <mailto:linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>>, council at linux.org.au
>>> <mailto:council at linux.org.au> <council at linux.org.au
>>> <mailto:council at linux.org.au>>
>>>
>>> Hi Kade,
>>>
>>> As a person who works with researchers everyday at the
>>> University of Melbourne, the idea of paywalls is a very hot
>>> topic at the moment.
>>>
>>> Open access publications such as F1000Research and PLOS ONE
>>> have provided researchers with more choices than ever before.
>>>
>>> Yet the big publications can still provide paywalls due to
>>> the way that research funding is granted, based on
>>> publication impact factor. Being able to publish in Nature
>>> gives one an advantage the next time the NHMRC and ARC
>>> grants come around.
>>>
>>> In my opinion, the issue around paywalls in research is very
>>> much one that needs a community fix, not a technical fix.
>>> And that fix is going to be a long and complicated journey.
>>>
>>> I am unsure how much of this backstory you know or which
>>> researchers you have talked to from a range of disciplines
>>> like Life Sciences, Humanities, Astronomy etc. I would
>>> highly recommend engaging with these researchers if you
>>> don't have those relationships already.
>>>
>>> In my opinion, this kind of project would be discussed at a
>>> University and Funding level (eg NHMRC) both nationally and
>>> internationally. I think the technical considerations would
>>> be of a very low priority
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Rowland Mosbergen
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 2:52 PM, Kade Morton via linux-aus
>>> <linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au
>>> <mailto:linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I've been asked to resend
>>>
>>> ***
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I wanted to make a grant for the open source project I
>>>> co-founded, Aletheia.
>>>>
>>>> Project name: Aletheia
>>>> Aim of the project: To provide an alternative to
>>>> publishing scientific research behind paywalls and to
>>>> popularise decentralised autonomous organisations.
>>>>
>>>> Aletheia is a decentralised and distributed database
>>>> which we're applying to academic publishing. Basically
>>>> a a database that is free to upload to and access from,
>>>> administered by the community as a decentralised
>>>> autonomous organisation. Aletheia would be an
>>>> alternative to publishing research behind paywalls.
>>>>
>>>> Have a look at our source code here:
>>>> https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-app
>>>> <https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-app>
>>>> Have a look at our community documentation here:
>>>> https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-admin
>>>> <https://github.com/aletheia-foundation/aletheia-admin>
>>>>
>>>> Key stages or milestones of the project:
>>>>
>>>> Completed
>>>>
>>>> * Onboarding documents up to standard that newcomers
>>>> can come onto the project, documents hosted on GitHub.
>>>> * Participated in the Mozilla Global Sprint
>>>> https://mozilla.github.io/global-sprint/
>>>> <https://mozilla.github.io/global-sprint/>
>>>> * Get application running on Ubuntu
>>>> * Get application running on Mac
>>>> * Cofounder to complete courses through Mozilla to
>>>> help create avenues for Mozilla's continued support
>>>> for Aletheia
>>>>
>>>> To be Completed
>>>>
>>>> * Get application running on Windows
>>>> * Finish MVP (aiming for 27th of October 2017)
>>>> * Run presentation about Aletheia and the
>>>> applications of decentralised and open source
>>>> technology in science at MozFest (application made,
>>>> waiting to hear for acceptance, presentation will
>>>> be in London, 27th of October 2017)
>>>> * Finish Aletheia 2.0 (aiming for 1st of July 2018)
>>>>
>>>> How the success of the project will be measured: Number
>>>> of downloads, number of active community users and
>>>> number of documents stored in Aletheia
>>>> Estimated cost breakdown of the project, including any
>>>> materials, projects or online services that are
>>>> required to deliver the project. The cost breakdown
>>>> should include estimates of labour costs and/or
>>>> professional services:
>>>>
>>>> * $15,000 for Extra Credits to create a video
>>>> covering Aletheia.
>>>> * $10,000 legal fees, up front consultation and ongoing
>>>> * $2,000 incidentals incurred so far (server costs,
>>>> custom domain name, travel expenses we have coming up)
>>>> * $5,000 to have website professionally built.
>>>>
>>>> These are a great deal of costs. I'd be happy to just
>>>> apply to have the video covered. We think a
>>>> professionally created video that's engaging and made
>>>> by a talented group of people with a large fan base
>>>> that's easily sharable on social media and can be given
>>>> to anyone who asks "what is Aletheia?" would be the
>>>> greatest boon to our project. We need to get the word
>>>> out about our project and increase the rate of
>>>> volunteers coming on to the project, we think the
>>>> visual medium of a video is the best way to do this.
>>>> Unfortunately we don't have any video editors working
>>>> on the project yet, and we've attempted to negotiate an
>>>> "open source rate" with Extra Credits but they have
>>>> said $15,000 is the lowest they will go. This single
>>>> cost can be paid and therefore count as incurred before
>>>> 30th of September 2017.
>>>>
>>>> The project team, their credentials and professional
>>>> capabilities, especially their history of open source,
>>>> open data, open hardware or open culture contributions:
>>>>
>>>> * Kade Morton, Mozilla regional coordinator for
>>>> Brisbane, Mozilla techspeaker, completed the
>>>> Mozilla open leadership course for open source
>>>> projects, organised Aletheia's contributions to
>>>> Mozilla's Global Sprint 2017, board member of
>>>> Electronic Frontiers Australia
>>>> * Roo (wishes to remain anonymous) cofounded Aletheia
>>>> with Kade, works for ThoughtWorks on a number of
>>>> open source projects, is extremely active in
>>>> running privacy, online security and
>>>> decentralisation meetups locally. If our
>>>> application hinges on the identity of Aletheia's
>>>> cofounder I can approach him and ask if he would
>>>> mind his name being disclosed to the council but as
>>>> a blanket rule he has asked for anonymity.
>>>>
>>>> Person responsible for project: Kade Morton
>>>> A statement including a willingness to provide regular
>>>> project updates on the project: I would be more than
>>>> happy to provide Linux Australia with regular status
>>>> updates on Aletheia and how our client is coming along.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Kade Morton
>>>> Twitter: @cypath
>>>> LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kade-morton-34179283
>>>> <http://linkedin.com/in/kade-morton-34179283>
>>>> Keybase: https://keybase.io/kademorton
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>
>
>
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--
Kathy Reid
President
Linux Australia
0418 130 636
president at linux.org.au
http://linux.org.au
Linux Australia Inc
GPO Box 4788
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
ABN 56 987 117 479
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