Zotero’s looking for a shortcut

What shortcut?! You have stated many times that Zotero converted ENS files and are distributing them, and have failed to provide evidence that this occurred, other than TR’s filing. This is also a fallacy (and some might find this applicable, but I’d not be more innocent).

This suit isn’t about copyright, it’s about GMU violating their license.

Yes, it is about whether or not a license violation occurred. I haven’t seen evidence of a violation. I’ve seen and presented evidence that at least some of TR’s claims are false. It is possible that there is some sort of non-public information that TR has (that you also apparently lack, or at least won’t share) that proves part of their complaint is accurate. I doubt it–they were too wrong about too much & the filing has been universally lambasted by both legal experts and those familiar with Zotero’s development.

And good luck with Refbase, which looks interesting as a front end for citations.

Thanks!

Keep in mind that MIT’s description is several months old & has the “con” that Zotero is “not great for formatting bibliographies for papers, since there aren’t many style formats.” The 1000+ styles that have been rolled out since these comments may change their opinion. I’ve seen peers fight with EndNote in theses and in complex bibliographies too.

I wrote my thesis in LaTeX & would do so again. Zotero isn’t the best BibTeX reference manager (though it is better than EndNote). It is probably good enough that I might have used it if it were available at the time.

Last word from MIT’s description:
“Ups and downs of using Zotero: There are still some kinks to be worked out of the software, so you may not want to use Zotero for writing your thesis or for creating complex bibliographies.”

@Michael
Thanks for your his initial skepticism and moderation.

Both Endnote styles and CSL files are derivative works from the journal publisher or professional society

“Derivative work has a specific definition under copyright law. Very few would consider styles to be derivative works, as very few would consider the journal publisher or professional society’s method for formatting citations to be novel enough to have a copyright. Certainly TR would not want their styles to be considered “derivative works:” any publisher could then sue TR for copyvio for including a style with EndNote.

From your comments, you did some work to move the process along, then Simon wrote a now-pulled convertor that rendered them en masse.

Nope. Simon wrote code to use the styles as-is, without creating an intermediary csl file that others could distribute or upload to the Zotero style repository. TR got this wrong in their complaint, but it is easy enough to verify that you can’t create a CSL from an ENS file without having to do more work & any file obtained in this procedure en masse would have tell-tale fingerprints of an automated conversion. (I released no styles until I heard about the lawsuit within the past month. I am releasing styles as a productive protest against the suit.)

I’m afraid that I really don’t see what ArtStor has to do with this. I haven’t read many complaints about the particular issue, and your “gripe” sounds like complaining about TR’s other holdings (the information in Web of Knowlege/Science, WestLaw, etc. is mostly available for free elsewhere & all TR has done is to package it & charge money for it (and they aren’t even an NPO)). In any case, you haven’t shown any evidence that Mellon is somehow pulling the strings of Zotero to create a commercial product down the road or that GMU would let them.

CSL holds promise, but it’s not in wide use.

Agree that it could be in wider use. It is already use in more products, developed by more people than .ens (of which Thomson claims a proprietary interest in).

Also, XML editors aren’t friendly authoring environments.

I agree that CSL editors could still stand to be improved, but XML editors aren’t the only way to make a style now & a textual format certainly makes minor variations of styles easy & enables great version control, etc.

Thomson isn’t suing users; they’re suing a university.

They are suing a university that had a site license to their product–a customer, by any definition. They have also changed the license on their filters, styles, manual, etc. such that they are of less utility to end users who obey the new contract.

So Thomson’s citation styles are worthy of purchase by Zotero? Doesn’t that put Zotero in the place of asking to license them, which would have avoided the lawsuit?

It means that some Zotero users would probably purchase the styles. It doesn’t mean that Zotero should use grant money to license them for all other users. I doubt licensing would have avoided this suit–Zotero has never distributed ENS files or styles that have been converted from ENS styles. If TR is willing to complain about things that didn’t happen, their whimsy could have led them to make any number of false allegations.

My personal opinion is that the site license agreement must have been out of sync with Endnote somehow

What do you mean by this?

Where’s a link to your site, then? Even a last name?

I’m not doing this for self promotion. I’ve told you styles I’ve written & the webapp I’ve helped write & my full contact info is there. My full identity is available to anyone who does even a small amount of research. Yours is not. I’ve linked to a page on financial donations to F/OSS projects that I have made.

if I signed my comments as Fred we’d be equal.

Assuming your name is actually Fred, we’d almost be equal. You have not linked yourself to any product, or claimed any authority on this subject. I have.

Also, it’s rude to accuse your debate opponent of being duped when they hold a contrary opinion.

If you honestly believe that styles from EndNote are being distributed by Zotero & are unable to back up that claim & despite evidence to the contrary, then you have been duped.

Both Endnote styles and CSL files are derivative works from the journal publisher or professional society, which puts out the ur-version. It takes some work to adapt each particular version (last name, initial, or whatever variation) to software. Zotero had a ways to go. From your comments, you did some work to move the process along, then Simon wrote a now-pulled convertor that rendered them en masse.

ArtStor started as institutions sharing images, then into a product. The correlation with GMU is that they could collect the citations, then the commercial database product follows. I don’t like this Mellon model, and find it dishonest. Robber-baron money forever stains. That IA vaporware announcement doesn’t mention the mechanics of sharing. What I see on the forums is a request for local and institutional sharing instead.

Two quibbles:
CSL holds promise, but it’s not in wide use. Also, XML editors aren’t friendly authoring environments. The Styles Manager in Endnote is usable by non-programmers. And schemas really aren’t standards.

Thomson isn’t suing users; they’re suing a university.
Take a peek at this article:
Fast Times at George Mason U

During its rise, George Mason rode the crest of Northern Virginia’s surge in population and wealth. Tailoring itself to the needs of local businesses, it cultivated entrepreneurship and a freewheeling approach that would be heretical on many campuses.”

I am entirely baffled by your statement here: “sell other products (citation styles and database subscriptions) to users of competing software.” So Thomson’s citation styles are worthy of purchase by Zotero? Doesn’t that put Zotero in the place of asking to license them, which would have avoided the lawsuit? My personal opinion is that the site license agreement must have been out of sync with Endnote somehow, which is unfortunate for users. I switch back and forth from Endnote to Zotero freely (Bibtex and RIS exports are pretty seamless).

“I don’t hide behind anonymity”
Where’s a link to your site, then? Even a last name? It takes cojones for me to ask you to provide credentials, Rick, but if I signed my comments as Fred we’d be equal.
What’s your webapp? Don’t see it.

“Yes–the subject is topical and I do not hide behind anonymity. If the bloggers don’t consider it spam, you shouldn’t.”
Since each comment appears to be unique, the individual blogger wouldn’t likely see each comment as spam. In aggregate, it’s odd. Advocacy can be, so can arguing on the Internet, so let’s call this one a draw.

Also, it’s rude to accuse your debate opponent of being duped when they hold a contrary opinion. Thanks for the debate; enjoyed it, though I wish I’d learned something I didn’t know.

Zotero needs product management. Until then, I’ve given up on it.

Beyond our agreement that 1.5 is an unstable beta, the only thing we agree upon is that I’m a shill.

Do you still think that Zotero is distributing EndNote styles or CSL styles that were converted from EndNote styles? If so, point to them. They need not be your own styles. If you cannot do this, it is clear that we agree on one more thing (whether or not you’d admit it).

you provided no evidence that … [uploads to the Internet Archive are] “planned to be opt-in & to apply to only a subset of your content.”

Even the original announcement states:

We understand that not everyone will be willing to share everything (some may not be willing to share anything)…Some researchers may of course deposit materials only after finishing, say, a book project.

Mellon abused tech transfer with the ArtStor project

Mellon is one of several funding sources behind Zotero & they do not micromanage GMU. Zotero only needs to deliver what was in the grant application.

I don’t know much about ArtStor, but it was started from the beginning as a NPO. As such, GMU’s tech transfer isn’t in the picture. I think ArtStor adheres to their original charter, but this seems to be wholly off-topic from GMU.

What were open forums are not registration-only.

What forums?

The problem is that the grant funders are doing the driving.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

what styles you’ve contributed

I have 47 styles in the zotero repository. I’m not going to bore anyone with the full list. A few “big names” on that list are AIP, APS, and Elsevier.

and your online community reference sharing site.

I’ve stated the name of my webapp.

And what are your credentials?

It appears you’ve been adding the same comment to multiple sites

Yes–the subject is topical and I do not hide behind anonymity. If the bloggers don’t consider it spam, you shouldn’t.

Also? CSL’s not a standard, its an XML schema–that’s it.

My point is that it is described by a public, documented schema, available to all to freely read and implement without royalties or discrimination and that it allows community contribution. It is supported by multiple programs & more have stated a desire to support it in the future.

Does Zotero or Thomson run a better community?

Zotero. You can’t have a good community when you are literally suing your users. The Zotero community seems to foster actual end-user solutions: producing and sharing styles and patches to the code and ideas for feature implementations that receive developer feedback.

More functional software product?

They both have their strengths and weaknesses from a technical standpoint:Zotero pros:
Data model is better (but can be improved)
Easier to download citation information
Easier to store full-text-searchable copies of articles (as annotatable HTML and PDF)
Works on every platform that Firefox is supported on (including 64-bit Windows and Linux)
OpenOffice.org support
Better styling backend
Exports follow the specifications better than in EndNote
PriceEndNote pros:No dependence on Firefox
Easier frontend for style editing
Ships with more styles
Easier sharing of libraries between users
Word integration is better able to handle multiple-author documents (although, when it has failed, it has led to me and others having to recover older backup versions of our documents).
More popular
Switching is not freeNeither product seems to have any important features that the other can never have. Zotero is going to be the clear winner in the future. For me, it already is.

Should EndNote win this legal battle beyond anyone’s dreams & crush Zotero completely, I’d use another non-EndNote reference manager.

As a (former) Endnote user, what do you think the outcome should be?

Thomson’s litigation is poisonous. Many claims are false, they’re treating customers as criminals, and they aren’t competing technically. They are monopolistic bullies and they deserve to lose–in this case & in any future nuisance suits against other competitors.

GMU thinks they will win, or they wouldn’t fight this (contrastingly, Thomson might have thought that GMU would fold & settle when they filed). Perhaps Thomson can dupe a jury like they’ve duped you. You are one of the few commentators I have come across that supports their actions.

Many people will ignore this case. Those that are paying attention generally disagree with TR & are the core audience for new and continuing site licenses: librarians and technology advocates. TR needs to save face in front of these people.

They won’t do this, but TR should work on improving their sales by making a better product, allowing customers to do what isn’t possible with the competition alone. Embrace new technologies. Sell other products (citation styles and database subscriptions) to users of competing software. Exploit open code to retain feature parity with the competition (e.g. support CSL).

I’ve given up on EndNote. I don’t care what they do–they’ve lost their monopoly & we are all better for it.

No offense intended by freetard, as it’s a term of amusement coined by the author of Fake Steve Jobs.

@Rick

Beyond our agreement that 1.5 is an unstable beta, the only thing we agree upon is that I’m a shill. I’m just a shill for software that works; free, open, or paid. As of now, Zotero isn’t there, and Endnote’s heading over the hill.

A wide audience is reading the Zotero coverage, and it’s a small club that is educated. Thus, thanks for your offer to have me link to my styles, but it would make me quite obvious to most.

Fact 1:
GMU is being sued.

I hope it causes them to rethink their partnership with the Internet Archive, especially since you provided no evidence that “Further, it is planned to be opt-in & to apply to only a subset of your content.”

Fact 2:
IA has no access control; they are predicated on just the opposite.

Thus, not a fantastic partner for subsets, I don’t think. It’s not fear, uncertainty, or doubt to want privacy for work in progress.

Fact 3:
GMU and Zotero are funded by Mellon.

Mellon abused tech transfer with the ArtStor project, which used community contributions to construct a product for sale. And it’s not really controversial to point out the link between the grants and CHNM. With Zotero, what was George Mason last year is suddenly GMU plus MIT this year. What were open forums are not registration-only. The problem is that the grant funders are doing the driving.

I challenge you to reveal your name, what styles you’ve contributed, and your online community reference sharing site. Otherwise “Rick” is just as anonymous as I am. It appears you’ve been adding the same comment to multiple sites about the ridiculous new click-through license (Google zotero and rick to see). Seems like spam from where I sit, though if I were feeling charitable, let’s call it advocacy. Also? CSL’s not a standard, its an XML schema–that’s it.

One last challenge: All scholars care about is active and helpful community. You may have experienced good support as a developer, but you admit to not using the product for published work (yet).

Does Zotero or Thomson run a better community? More functional software product? My experience leads away from the conventional wisdom.

As a (former) Endnote user, what do you think the outcome should be?