The first freedom in open source is access. But access threatens business models, so when publishers felt the heat of open source advocates, they did what any other business would do.
They launched a PR War. Its aim is to stop a requirement that research funded by the NIH be placed on the agency’s PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. The House has passed it in the new budget, the Senate is considering it.
Getting research onto the Web would end the publishers’ current exclusive on older research, and would cost them money.
Peter Suber, the open access project director at Public Knowledge, has covered PRISM and the backlash against it on his blog. He says [PRISM's] lobbying is more of a threat to open access than the message put out by PRISM.
In the past, questions of academic publishing were elite topics argued mainly among elites. With PRISM, the publishing industry has broken out of this frame, targeting politicians and the public.
Without some serious pushback the first essential of open source could easily be lost.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/12/2007 12:32:00 PM.
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.