Richard Stallman, Free Community Science and the Free Development of Science, PLoS Medicine, February 2005. A letter to the editor. Excerpt: 'In free community science, where large numbers of scientists participate as volunteers in a single project, the ideal of scientific cooperation finds a new expression. Free community science was inspired by the free software movement....The ideal of scientific cooperation goes beyond the conduct of individual projects. Scientific cooperation is also being reinvigorated today through the open-access movement, which promotes the public's freedom to redistribute scientific and scholarly articles. In the age of the computer networks, the best way to disseminate scientific writing is by making it freely accessible to all and letting everyone redistribute it. I give a vote of thanks to the Public Library of Science for leading the campaign that is now gaining momentum. When research funding agencies pressure journals to allow free redistribution of new articles they fund, they should apply this demand to the old articles "owned" by the same publishers --not just to papers published starting today....The free software movement, the free redistribution policy of this journal, and the practice of free community science for developing diagnostic disease classifications are all based on the same fundamental principle: knowledge contributes to society when it can be shared and developed by communities. All three face opposition from those who would like to privatize knowledge and charge tolls for its use. In the free software movement we have 20 years' experience in resisting this opposition, and we have built up considerable strength and momentum. We can give the other two movements a boost, so they can advance more quickly.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/22/2005 02:26:00 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.
