A commentary by Dirk Riehle brought my attention to the latest ACM Editorial, where Mr. Vardi states that "the open access (OA) movement found itself in the IP communist camp".  Like Dirk, I find this point of view regrettable and his arguments rather unconvincing.  I publish a lot myself.  Conveniently, Mr. Vardi talks about costs to readers and/or authors, but conveniently leaves out (to a large degree) the role publishers play. This matters, as a lot of the criticisms stems from publishers reaping amazing profits (e.g. Elsevier with a profit margin of 36% in 2010).

I am an entrepreneur, so I am hardly a communist.  I also agree that there are costs that have to be covered somehow.  But having been a researcher, I know that the bulk of the work (writing, reviewing, editing, etc.) is done by volunteers without monetary compensation. There is no justification for the status quo.