It's totally ridiculous that such content is only available behind paywalls. I'm in 'lisp research' mode again, and I ran in to this, figured others might want to read it.
You can often find the papers by searching on either CiteSeer (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/) or Google Scholar. On the latter, click "All X versions" - there are often copies on authors' faculty pages, for example, before the ACM took something free and locked it up.
Sometimes, you can also go to a local university, open up your laptop in a cafeteria (or library), search for any open wireless network, and bypass those paywalls completely.
I have a wonderful one just across the street from home. With a Pringles can I could do it from my bedrom ;-)
> Sometimes, you can also go to a local university, open up your laptop in a cafeteria (or library), search for any open wireless network, and bypass those paywalls completely.
I think it's important to realise that, if you are opposed (as mahmud (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1591586) is, for example) to paying for this content, that you are not bypassing the paywalls, but, rather, taking advantage of the university's having already paid its way through them.
(To be clear, I think that it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do; just that it's important to realise that nothing is being ‘bypassed’ per se. I also think you're very lucky to be near a university with an open network—all that I know now require authentication.)
