Why bioRxiv can’t be the Central Service – Jordan Anaya – Medium

"1. BioRxiv software is not open source

BioRxiv is immediately disqualified from being the Central Service because it is licensing a HighWire Press platform. ASAPbio makes it clear in their proposal that all technology for the Central Service must be open source.

2. Incompatible licenses

When you submit a preprint to bioRxiv you have several license choices, including “All Rights Reserved”. Daniel Himmelstein and I previously analyzed the license choices at bioRxiv and found 30% to be “All Rights Reserved”.

This is problematic for a Central Service because that means these preprints can’t be distributed, or even archived by a third party. How these preprints with restrictive licenses are going to be archived in a Central Service is an open question. Whether third parties will be able to text mine these articles is also an open question.

3. No standards

One goal of the Central Service is to establish standards for preprints, which includes making sure there is complete metadata. I’ve used this image before, but it is ridiculous enough to post again."