Dear Otto,
I do agree with what Guy wrote. I feel we are being railroaded by IFIP's rulers. One result from agreement with the Springer proposal will certainly be that we continue to be captive to Springer. We are already suffering from this in that being captive prevented us from negotiating with Google.
Perhaps Springer is the best we can do. The contract certainly has very strong benefits for Springer while IFIP, again as captive, has very little freedom of action.
Thanks to Guy Leduc, discussion has begun within our committee. But the chances of producing a careful analysis in eight days are small.
Regards, Harry
Guy Leduc wrote:
Dear Otto,
I'll try my best to review this, but let me say that only 8 days to let us review this document and comment on it, when it is so important, is not enough.
For example, I am away amost all the time this week and busy with lots of things.
Do they really want our comments? If so, they should give us a bit more time. Of course if they don't want our comments and want to expedite a decision, this is the right way to proceed. I always noted that they let things sleep for months (or years) and then suddently they need an answer within days.
We have a short group in TC6 headed by Harry Rudin. Perhaps would it be nice to have a short exchange of views within this group before replying anything.
Best regards, Guy