For years, the open science movement has sought to light a fire about the “closed” journal-publication system. In the last few weeks their efforts seemed to have ignited a broader flame, driven mainly, it seems, by the revelation that one of the most resented publishers, Elsevier, was backing the Research Works Act — some tomfoolery I noted in Congress Considers Paywalling Science You Already Paid For, on Jan 6. Now, 24 days later, scientists are pledging by the hundreds to not cooperate with Elsevier in any way — refusing to publish in its journals, referee its papers, or do the editorial work that researchers have been supplying to journals without charge for decades — and the rebellion is repeatedly reaching the pages of the New York Times and Forbes. This is easily the biggest surge the open-science movement has ever put on. At The Cost of Knowledge, the site created for the roster, there were 1,400 signatories last night, and when I woke today at 5 a.m., over 1,600. The thing seems to be snowballing. Some have ached to take action for years. Others are newly radicalized. In my feature I speculated whether librarians would eventually lead the charge. But Jason Hoyt, then of Mendeley and now of OpenRePub, seemed to have it closer: The revolution awaited only the researchers. A skim through their testimony (below the jump here) is an education in why the call for open science is going mainstream:

Scott Aaronson MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab – Computer Science won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work Nigel Brown University of Edinburgh – Biology won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work David Atkinson FL Institute for Human and Machine Cognition – Computer Science won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work David Doyle Industry won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work Jean-Luc Eggen Tudelft, inscipa.com won’t referee, won’t do editorial work David Eppstein University of California, Irvine – Computer Science won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work Mark Everitt National Institute of Informatics – Physics won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work John Faithfull Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work José Figueroa-O’Farrill University of Edinburgh – Physics won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work Kai von Fintel MIT won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work Andy Forceno University of Connecticut won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

David Gerts USAF – Physics won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Ian Gibson Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Lus Ibanez Kitware Inc. – Computer Science won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Eric Kansa Opencontext.org / UC Berkeley won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Lew Yao Long Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus) – Chemistry won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Paul Manning Trent University won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Paul Muhly University of Iowa – Mathematics won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

Ardal Powell University of Cambridge won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work

DAO Duy Quang Institut Pprime, UPR CNRS 3346 Département FTC, Branche Combustion, 1 Avenue Clément Ader, BP 40109 86961 Chasseneuil Futuroscope, France, – Chemistry won’t publish, won’t referee, won’t do editorial work