Bonjour la liste,

Je viens de recevoir le message suivant qui vous intéressera peut-être...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------
Endnote business collapsing because of Zotero new syncing 1.5 features ?
(See: http://www.zotero.org/documentation/sync_preview ) Remember
that Thompson already "killed" the excellent Procite software to sell
Endnote !

See info below about the legal war from Center for History and New
Media (CHNM) against private firm Thompson Reuter, owning Endnote
software (and ISI).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
-------------------------

The Thomson Reuters Corporation has sued the Commonwealth of
Virginia over Zotero, a project based at George Mason University's
Center for History and New Media (CHNM).

A free and open-source software initiative, Zotero aims to create
the world's best research tool and has already been adopted by
hundreds of thousands of users at countless colleges and research
universities. CHNM announces that it has re-released the full
functionality of Zotero 1.5 Sync Preview to its users and the open
source community. As part of its formal response to this legal action,
Mason will also not renew its site license for EndNote.

As academics themselves, the creators of the Zotero project strive
to serve the scholarly community and to respond to its needs in an age
of digital research. In line with that simple goal, they maintain that
anything created by users of Zotero belongs to those users, and that
it should be as easy as possible for Zotero users to move to and from
the software as they wish, without friction. CHNM concurs with the
journal Nature, which recently editorialized about this matter: "The
virtues of interoperability and easy data-sharing among researchers
are worth restating." (See article below)

CHNM remains committed to the openness it has promoted since its
founding at Mason in 1994 and to the freedoms of users of its websites
and software. Its ambitious development cycle and plans for Zotero's
future remain unchanged. CHNM will continue to develop and implement
new research technologies in the pursuit of better ways to create and
share scholarship. CHNM greatly appreciates the many supportive
comments it has received from scholars, librarians, and administrators
around the globe.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
------:

NATURE:
Editorial
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7214/full/455708a.html

Nature 455, 708 (9 October 2008) | doi:10.1038/455708a; Published
online 8 October 2008

Beta blockers?
Abstract

Proprietary data formats may be legally defensible but open
standards can be a better spur for innovation.

A historian of science and computing, and a scholar whose PhD
thesis was on "professionalization of cooking among domestic servants
in eighteenth-century France", might seem unlikely characters to find
at the centre of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. But that is exactly
what has happened in the suit brought against George Mason University
(GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia, by Thomson Reuters, the company probably
best known for its ISI science indicators.

Dan Cohen, director of GMU's Center for History and New Media, and
Sean Takats, a GMU history professor, are also directors of Zotero:
open-source software developed by the history centre that lets
researchers organize and share their digital information iTunes style,
whether it is in the form of citations, documents or web pages. Zotero
is free and popular, and has attracted some 1 million downloads since
its launch in October 2006.

Thomson makes the proprietary bibliography software EndNote, and
claims that Zotero is causing its commercial business "irreparable
harm" and is wilfully and intentionally destroying Thomson's customer
base. In particular, Thomson is demanding that GMU stop distributing
the newer beta-version of Zotero that allegedly allows EndNote's
proprietary data format for storing journal citation styles to be
converted into an open-standard format readable by Zotero and other
software. Thomson claims that Zotero "reverse engineered or
decompiled" not only the format, but also the EndNote software itself.

The company is seeking a minimum of US$10 million in damages
annually until GMU halts distribution of Zotero's new feature. It also
demands that GMU "terminate" the ability of each Zotero user to use or
distribute any open-source files converted from EndNote's own data
format. GMU seems ready to fight the suit; a spokesperson told Nature
that the university believes it is "well within its rights", but
declined to go into further detail given the ongoing litigation.
Thomson was contacted but declined to comment, saying: "It is the
policy of Thomson Reuters that we do not comment on pending litigation."

Thomson is claiming on the grounds that GMU has a site licence to
EndNote, and that Zotero's actions breach the terms of the licensing
contract. Thomson did not challenge GMU on grounds of copyright law,
in which certain protections are in place to allow for creating
interoperability. Thomson also claims that Zotero is infringing on the
trademark 'EndNote' to induce Zotero users to convert EndNote's
proprietary style files.

Litigation, which may go to a jury trial, is pending, so judging
this case on its legal merits would be premature. But on a more
general level, the virtues of interoperability and easy data-sharing
among researchers are worth restating. Imagine if Microsoft Word or
Excel files could be opened and saved only in these proprietary
formats, for example. It would be impossible for OpenOffice and other
such software to read and save these files using open standards — as
they can legally do.

Competition between open-source and proprietary software is
long-running, as personified by the struggle between Windows and Linux
for desktop and server operating systems, but also in many branches of
software used by scientists. Researchers tend to lean towards open
sharing, but they will also pay for added-value features, and it's
important that the playing field is level. Ultimately, the customer is
king.