Rory has more information at Library Juice and you can read this earlier post concerning the controversy regarding Elsevier’s involvement in “organizing weapons trade shows attended by representatives of the worldâ€™s militaries.” They got pressured, people sent a petition. They backed down. I think this is sort of good news.
“Sort of good news”…. Would you explain the implied qualification there? What makes it not simply good news?
I would think the qualification would be based upon these factors: (1) They were in this racket to begin with; (2) When they backed down, it was not from/with any moral realizations, but simply as a business decision; (3) They defended their actions in their press release, with no apologies.
Taking all three of these factors together, if they ever work out a cost benefit analysis which shows the profits they can make by getting back into this racket would outway the financial negatives of it, they would start doing it again in a heartbeat–don’t think otherwise.
“sort of” because of the inevitable backlash that these types of things engender and what Matthew said. I didn’t feel like they were making a particularly strong statement about what their previous actions were, even though I’m pleased with their decision.