Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, January 01, 2004

Putting the WSIS into perspective

Guy Berger, WSIS and the big picture, Mail & Guardian, December 30, 2003. Excerpt: "The document further includes a reference that 'a rich public domain is an essential element for the growth of the information society'. It adds elsewhere that 'many of the building blocks of the information society are the result of scientific and technological advances made possible by the sharing of research results'. Accordingly, the declaration says there should be open access initiatives for scientific publishing. But to the disappointment of civil society advocates, it stops there, and shies away from the same principle when it comes to support for open and free software....In a bid to highlight the importance of an 'information commons' in the information society, the civil society document notes: 'The increasing privatisation of knowledge production threatens to restrict the availability of research results.'"