Founding Editorial: Sovereignty in Scholarship

Authors

  • Waitman Gobble Author

Keywords:

sovereign, decentralization, social networks, activitypub

Abstract

In recent years, the landscape of academic publishing has reached a paradoxical breaking point. While the technology for decentralized, global communication has never been more advanced, the "gatekeepers" of knowledge have remained stubbornly centralized. Researchers today are often faced with a grim choice: hide their work behind a corporate paywall or pay "Article Processing Charges" (APCs) ranging from $1,000 to over $5,000 just to make their own research freely available.

This model is not only extractive; it is anathema to the very principles of the decentralized systems many of us are trying to build. If we are to design protocols for user sovereignty and open-source infrastructure, the record of that research must itself be sovereign and open.

 

Author Biography

  • Waitman Gobble

    dev for Hyphero

References

Downloads

Published

2026-04-08

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2026): Decentralized

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Waitman Gobble (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

For the License Terms textarea in OJS, you want to provide a clear, legally sound statement that confirms your Diamond Open Access status while reinforcing the Hyphero mission of author sovereignty.

Since you've selected CC BY 4.0, here is a professional "Gold Standard" text you can copy and paste:

License Terms: Recommended Text

Authors who publish with the Journal of Decentralized Systems (JDS) agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This allows others to share, copy, and adapt the work for any purpose, even commercially, provided they acknowledge the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their personal website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

  4. There are no fees (APCs) charged to authors for submission or publication.