Dear Peter, dear Guy L., dear Harry (and others),
My higher level concerns are: (a) TC6 is one of the more important TC6s when it comes to publishing (and therefore IFIP revenue) but we are not being given reasonable time to consider proposals such as Springer's, proposals which could have a fundamental effect on the way we operate. (b) If we go to Springer (or any publishing house), we have to make sure that we don't suffer in the same way as happened when Chapman & Hall got taken over and servers were arbitrarily shut down. (Going out of business is one thing, changing policy is another) (c) Springer say that they will have to modify the framework to include Open Access - in other words: it doesn't include it now!
Thank you very much for your commets (I copied above Peter Radford's comments. The comments made by Guy Leduc have been obtained by all of you).
Even if our actions are "illegal" (and some people play here a more moralist role than the pope with respect to the use of condoms. Such a tendency is valid, in particular, for TC2; a committee which always asks for money - e.g. 20.000 EURO for a short workshop in a developing country but never produces any income). I'm glad that we got so many constructive comments from TC6 members. By the way: We were not the only ones to inform a TC; TC3 did the same and for good reasons. I'll put together a common document with our viewpoint and I'll send it to the IFIP Publication Committee.
One point at least can be clarified: STM publishing means: Scientific, Technical, and Medical publishing Springer SSBM has two sections: STM and B2B (Business-to-Business). (Google knows everything ;-) ).
Best regards Otto