"Nature" to make all articles free to view... but not on Linux.

[Recursion]

Because, you know, scientists don't use Linux or anything.

http://www.nature.com/news/nature-makes-all-articles-free-to-view-1.16460

All research papers from Nature will be made free to read in a proprietary screen-view format that can be annotated but not copied, printed or downloaded, the journal’s publisher Macmillan announced on 2 December.

The content-sharing policy, which also applies to 48 other journals in Macmillan’s Nature Publishing Group (NPG) division, including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Nature Physics, marks an attempt to let scientists freely read and share articles while preserving NPG’s primary source of income — the subscription fees libraries and individuals pay to gain access to articles.

ReadCube, a software platform similar to Apple’s iTunes, will be used to host and display read-only versions of the articles' PDFs. If the initiative becomes popular, it may also boost the prospects of the ReadCube platform, in which Macmillan has a majority investment.

Annette Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan’s Science and Education division, says that under the policy, subscribers can share any paper they have access to through a link to a read-only version of the paper’s PDF that can be viewed through a web browser. For institutional subscribers, that means every paper dating back to the journal's foundation in 1869, while personal subscribers get access from 1997 on.

ReadCube uses a version of Adobe AIR that does not and will not support Linux.

Sigh.

[defacto7]

1. Is there a push back against the

Open Source trend? Hope not, but in the end open source/unix based systems usually find a way, even against the corporate overlords.

For a time these things can cause an itch though.

[phantom power]

2. oh man