Have you heard of... patents? Why is an idea written on paper so valuable? Why can't people just use it (or, as it often happens, independently rediscover it) and just cite the patent if recognition is required?
As for scientific research, most of the software behind scientific paper is basically closed source. Which is another reason why there's a whole reproducibility problem with science papers: it's quite possible many papers are just bad interpretation of data due to bad software.
Also note how much software / research / data is proprietary. How can one quote that?
I wouldn't mind using only BSD in the future if I get to read the Apple iOS source code on GitHub.
It's not a different issue. You used academic papers as the standard we could use for open source and it's provably worse.
Even copyright... isn't Elsevier a major copyright holder for all academic papers and thus causing all sorts of problems. It's not like it's all kumbaya out there. The academic world is much worse than GPL and open source on multiple dimensions.
This argument confuses the typescript of a result with the result itself. The physical presentation of the paper is copyrighted. The scientific results in the paper are not copyrighted (which makes sense, since copyright only applies to a particular instantiation). For computer code, which can be copied and pasted, copyright and licensing are powerful constraints. Scientific results must be reproduced by some set of experimental procedures -- copy and paste makes no sense -- so patents are typically the only protection. Certainly Elsevier does not "own" or control in any way one's ability to confirm, refute, or extend a scientific result.
I suppose the academic world might be considered worse than GPL in some copyright sense, but not in the practical sense of sharing/reproducing/extending results. And, of course, one does not need to publish with Elsevier -- there is no shortage of "open-access" journals.
> isn't Elsevier a major copyright holder for all academic papers and thus causing all sorts of problems
No, I could be wrong, but it’s my understanding that the author of the academic paper still holds the copyright, it’s just the author licensed sole (or near exclusive) distribution rights to Elsevier in exchange for publication in their journals. It’s basically the same in the publishing world, I own the copyright on the book I coauthored, but WROX Press owns the distribution rights as we gave those up in exchange for them publishing.
As for scientific research, most of the software behind scientific paper is basically closed source. Which is another reason why there's a whole reproducibility problem with science papers: it's quite possible many papers are just bad interpretation of data due to bad software.
Also note how much software / research / data is proprietary. How can one quote that?
I wouldn't mind using only BSD in the future if I get to read the Apple iOS source code on GitHub.