We’re over 1250 signatures which should be enough to force the ACM to hold a vote (the threshold is 1% of membership, or around 700 members).

Last Tuesday, Jonathan Aldritch and I met with ACM CEO Vicki Hanson and other members of ACM publications to see if they would commit to open access within five years. They mentioned some ongoing plans and an aborted attempt to mirror all papers to arXiv, but so far we have no concrete guarantees.

Last week I was at POPL, a major programming languages conferences sponsored by the ACM SIGPLAN. At the business meeting, SIGPLAN President Jens Palsberg expressed outrage at the state of open access in the ACM, and many attendees were appalled at both the ACM’s signature on the letter to the US government and the astronomical fees associated with Gold Open Access.

The ACM also hosted a number of “webinars” on open access last week, and I hope you were able to take the opportunity to speak up in support of open access. If not, I encourage you to make your voices heard through email, phone calls, social media and more.

In response to the original letter opposing a US government initiative to require zero embargoes on government-funded research, some people have started a petition in support of this policy. I would encourage US citizens and residents to sign the letter.

Keep up the good fight!