Dear Marta, Congratulations on the success of your campaign to get Elsevier to withdraw from the arms trade. However, I do not understand what use I am supposed to make of this news. If you tell your child that s/he will not get any chocolate cake until s/he tidies his/her bedroom, and then s/he does so, you are obliged to provide the chocolate cake. Are you now saying that Elsevier was just a naughty child, whom we loved all along really, and that we should start "publishing" (ie privatising) our papers in their expensive journals? It seems to me that the discussion on this list on this issue around Christmas completely failed to address the main point of the journals issue. Well, it nearly got there, but it was at just that point that Bob cut it off. The problem lies with the academic establishment, starting from professors like you who are editors of journals, organisers of conferences or heads of department, through the managements of universities, up to the ministers of education in our respective countries. These are the people who hold the guns to our heads while companies like Elsevier rob us of our intellectual property. If certain of my colleagues want to set up new open-access on-line journals in topology or whatever subject, then I strongly welcome that, and am willing to help if they ask me to do so. However, this does not solve the problem of the pressure that is put on us by our lords and masters, especially when they specify lists of "approved" journals, or employ - inherently fraudulent - methods of bibliometry to "assess" our work. Best wishes, Paul PS Please note the new email address and web site: pt07@PaulTaylor.EU and www.PaulTaylor.EU