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.'"
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/01/2004 09:22:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.