The promise would be that in HTML, everything is reformatted to look great on any line length.

But there is a kind of integration attack going on: Once we have the HTML version, why not enhance the paper with things PDF can't do? After all, HTML5 offers limitless possibilities to make the 3D figures interactive, run simulations, have the examples to be toys you can play with, etc.

Once these seemingly harmless new features are there, who would want to go back to the PDF version, which is a
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static, cumbersome and arcane? Once we are there, we will definitely need versioning of publications because if papers become software, they will have bugs and need bug fixes.

I feel very insecure about this future. I am unhappy with how static and old-fashioned it is of us, to stick to this A4-PDF-paper format, for documents which are consumed on laptop and iPhone screens, and it never really fits and scrolling and zooming and whatnot.
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On the other hand, I want to be done with a paper at some point. If publications turn into software, they will just need a lot of maintenance, forever. Maybe it can be solved with open-source culture, maybe future generations will take care of the bug fixing for my papers, but why would they and how would the get credit for this work in an academic system that only rewards new things and not the maintenance?

So what do you think about HTML arXiv papers?

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