If anyone is confused like I was:
"Gold open access": publish paper in a publicly accessible academic journal.
"Green open access": self-publish. For instance, throw it on a website, and allow it to be indexed.
"Gold open access": publish paper in a publicly accessible academic journal.
"Green open access": self-publish. For instance, throw it on a website, and allow it to be indexed.
In green open access, you publish your paper with a big company. They charge people to read it – but you make another version available for free. This has not caught on except in math and physics.
In diamond open access, you publish your paper with a journal that's free for you and free for the people who read it. This has also not caught on, because most "prestigious" journals – the ones you need to publish in to get a job – are run by companies who don't do stuff for free.
In black open access, people illegally download millions of papers and books from big companies and make them available to everyone for free. This is working great. """ - John Baez post on google-plus.
Because when it comes down to it, "Hacker News thinks this is swell" doesn't actually matter.
Green means "arxiv": the author uploads a "preprint" version to a website. The "official" version is in a conventional reader-pays journal.
"Black" does indeed mean sci-hub piracy.