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[Excellent paper on the challenges facing open source software, open
access to research and scholarship and open science. See also the Public
Knowledge Project at UBC - http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/ -- BSA]
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_8/willinsky/index.html
Abstract
A number of open initiatives are actively resisting the extension of
intellectual property rights. Among these developments, three prominent
instances - open source software, open access to research and scholarship,
and open science - share not only a commitment to the unrestricted exchange
of information and ideas, but economic principles based on (1) the efficacy
of free software and research; (2) the reputation-building afforded by
public access and patronage; and, (3) the emergence of a free-or-subscribe
access model. Still, with this much in common, the strong sense of
convergence among these open initiatives has yet to be fully realized, to
the detriment of the larger, common issue. By drawing on David's (2004;
2003; 2000; 1998) economic work on open science and Weber's (2004) analysis
of open source, this paper seeks to make that convergence all the more
apparent, as well as worth pursuing, by those interested in furthering this
alternative approach, which would treat intellectual properties as public
goods.
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