Am Die, 17 Dez 2002 schrieb Laurent Guerby:
Hi, it might be interesting to support http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/
Well, the open letter (that was signed by 30.000 scientists) has not strongly affected overall journal policies as they might have hoped. PLOS is not about free software but open access, indeed these two subjects are related. Two days ago they have received a $9 mio. grant to launch a scientific publishing venture--glad to hear it.
Academic publishing resembles some strong similarities to free software. Some recent initiatives (as PLOS) have come into existence that base on free software to back their work. Other important sites about open access include the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/), and Peter Subers Free Online Scholarship Weblog (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html).
It is not easy to compete with established commercial publishers, so these initiatives need support. I think there are some interesting things under way, and we will see lots of free software involved. It would be good to follow these events from our side.
BTW, this year I finished my thesis in librarianship dealing with some of these models and how they may affect the academic libraries (and their heavily stressed budgets). Unfortunately it is in German, but those interested may access the full text next month.
Regards, Daniel Zimmel