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Good section.

My observations on RRS-language at submission + green OA is that it is:

a) economically, it's a safety-valve if the publishers do continue to raise their pricing of open access at the journal options (aka Gold OA)

b) from the author POV, the RRS-language is an excellent safety net. If the authors include the RRS-language at submission they will always be guaranteed to be in compliance with their UKRI research funder open access policy. So even if it's not strictly mandated it would certainly be advisable for authors to do it. If the publisher raises concerns about the RRS-language then it might signal some 'red flag' issues and it serves to notify potential issues with how the publisher intends to proceed.

Few authors are aware of this, but many 'Gold OA' fully open access journals outlets listed in DOAJ are not themselves immediately compliant with either Wellcome or UKRI licensing requirements. DOAJ lists 8,293 journals which use non-compliant licensing (CC BY-NC ; CC BY-NC-SA ; CC BY-NC-ND ) an author publishing in one of these outlets may need to choose "Route 2" (green OA) to comply with UKRI policy if one of these is chosen, but may not be aware of this at submission because the journal calls itself an "open access" journal. Hence using RRS-language at submission for all journal submissions is advisable to avoid problems and conflicts.

https://doaj.org/search/journals?ref=homepage-box&source=%7B%22query%22%3A%7B%22filtered%22%3A%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22bool%22%3A%7B%22must%22%3A%5B%7B%22terms%22%3A%7B%22index.license.exact%22%3A%5B%22CC%20BY-NC%22%2C%22CC%20BY-NC-SA%22%2C%22CC%20BY-NC-ND%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%7D%2C%22query%22%3A%7B%22query_string%22%3A%7B%22query%22%3A%22*%22%2C%22default_operator%22%3A%22AND%22%7D%7D%7D%7D%7D

Please please please mention the "subscribe to open" (S2O) model in this section.

I see a very very natural pathway going from increasing rates of green availability -> S2O deal.
The transition to an APC-OA model is not the only pathway.

Libraries already pay X per year to have the journal published behind a paywall.
Under S2O they can pay X per year to keep the journal publishing... without a paywall (and also retain access to still gated older content, to give the individual subscribing institution and edge that makes it more than just an altruistic payment, there's a selfish element to it as well)

The subscription payments from libraries/instituions stay but the paywall (to new and future content) goes.

"These journals may therefore decide to return a pure subscription model (desk rejecting papers that wish to use RRS), or flip to a gold APC model" makes it seem like it's either a) "subs+paywall" or b) "APC-OA" . It isn't a binary pathway of either a or b.

Although diamond OA is there and does exist it mostly happens with newly created journals.
I don't think it's credible to suggest hybrid -> diamond , but I do think it's credible to suggest hybrid -> S2O (and there are of course many working/sustained examples so far...)

I worry the "Desk rejection of manuscripts" section doesn't read well.

I fear you could be misquoted as simply advocating for editors to desk reject manuscripts that contain RRS-language if they are at all unsure on their journal's policy. I don't think this is what you're trying to say is it?

I would emphasise that journals do not need copyright transfer in order to be able to publish research. They merely need a licence to publish from the author(s).

I think the "journal's copyright requirements" are a bit of a red-herring here. That's not the issue, or at least not a clear wording of it.

For some subscription/'hybrid' journals they may happily accept the work-required to publish a research output under CC BY but if and only if an APC is paid -- the issue isn't merely about the copyright, it's about wanting additional payments if the output is to be CC BY licensed. Those outlets can and do publish things under CC BY sometimes and without a paywall, but for commercially-owned publishing 'hybrid' outlets that usually only happens if an APC is paid. I'd refer to it as journal-level policy or publisher-level policy - because in truth that's what it is, an optional policy they have chosen to have, not anything 'real' that physically prevents them from publishing outputs under CC BY or with author-retained rights.

I would also highlight that the publishers have been given ample time to make their policies publicly clear on whether they will accept RRS-language including submissions in 'hybrid' or 'Transformative Agreement' covered journals or TJ's (Transformative Journals) but the publishers themselves, aside from AAAS, have chosen not to make clear and unambiguous statements about if they will support green OA with RRS-language at submission. (and do remember that RRS-language at submission and choosing to do green OA are two different separate things)

I think I also have to pull you up on this one before someone else does.

You write "green OA is always available".

This is only true under the assumption that the journals that people like to publish in remain subscription/'hybrid' journals.

For fully open access APC-OA journals e.g. PLOS, eLife, Nature Communications (aside from rarely given fee waivers), they won't accept the article until an APC has been paid. At fully OA journals green OA does not exist and/or is not really available.

Thus I don't think it's strictly true to say "green OA is always available". As long as publishers keep chosing to operate a predominately paywalled ('hybrid') model for a journal, then green OA is sort of always available. Even then, the publisher-imposed embargo policy may include a 24-month embargo on the AAM and may not allow CC BY on the AAM. The publisher/journal may also not allow/accept submissions with RRS-language. Some (all?) of the journals of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) e.g. Blood are already known to not permit/accept manuscript submissions including RRS-language - they simply do not like or agree with CC BY licensing for research outputs.

"the publisher-preferred model of 'gold OA' where an article processing charge must be paid"

Gold OA originally meant just OA at the journal. See Suber's book on OA. Gold OA is not synonymous with APC-OA.
https://openaccesseks.mitpress.mit.edu/

Technically speaking Diamond OA is a subtype of Gold OA (as in Diamond OA, the output is also made available by the publisher at the official publisher website).

You could argue there has been 'semantic drift' in what 'Gold OA' means, so that a lot of people use it to describe APC-OA but I do not buy that argument. If you want to talk about APC-OA say APC-OA, if you want to talk about outputs being open access at the journal then you can say 'Gold OA' (but this doesnt necessarily mean an APC needs/has been levied) or just 'journal-mediated open access' or 'outputs made open access at the journal'.

"now that the UKRI has joined Wellcome and other funders in mandating rights retention"

I wish this wasn't the case but I fear this is a slight oversimplication of the OA policy that UKRI has published.

Actually UKRI only mandates RRS clearly if authors choose the "Route 2" to publishing (what we refer to as 'green OA').

This certainly diverges from Wellcome's policy whereby ALL submissions must contain RRS language.
For UKRI it's only where the author intends to use "Route 2" that they need to include RRS language.

For "Route 1" options aka 'Gold OA' (with or without an author-side fee) aka 'open acccess at the journal' authors need only ensure that the output is made available under CC BY or on a case-bycase basis, the use of a more restrictive Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND). Hypothetical (but also sadly in practice), CC BY as an 'end-user license' in publisher-speak can be applied by a publisher to a work AFTER copyright has been transferred from authors to publishers. So for "Route 1" UKRI has not mandated author rights retention, but has mandated Creative Commons licensing.