All of these models assume the journal and the publisher are necessary in order for academic (refereed) articles to exist and be used. As I showed in my Deconstructed Journal paper (http://kar.kent.ac.uk/1415/) many years ago there are academic publishing models that support all the functional requirements of academic publishing without the need for a publisher or an originating journal. By getting rid of the traditional publisher and the traditional academic journal (which contains the articles) you allow a situation where each agency providing the necessary functions or activities can be funded independently, each with its own range of possible funding models. By retaining these unnecessary elements (publisher and originating journal) you restrict the range of possible funding models that could arise to support open access academic publishing.

Raym,

Thanks for your comment. The same year I published the DJ article I also had a short paper in the ElPub99 Conference (entitled Prolegomena to any future e-publishing model - http://kar.kent.ac.uk/18959/) where I suggested 6 ground rules that should be applied when thinking about new publishing models; the first rule was called the 'Let go' rule and said one should "Let go completely of the superficial structure of the paper-based model". The second rule was the ‘Purpose not form’ rule which said "it is the purpose not the form of the old model that we need to consider in future designs".

Regards,

John.