David Gerard wrote:
(courtesy Mathias Schindler)
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,462845,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501... http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html
Now, is there anything WMF can do to advocate free content? Is that political or entirely in accordance with our goals? Or what can individuals do?
The article at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=60AADF2C-E7F2-99... goes int a bit more detail. They even note that "Nature" and "Scientific American" are owned by the same people.
I think that it would be unwise to overeact to what appears to be an act of desparation. Even the "Washington Post" uses that word in talking about the matter. If the best slogan they can come up with is "Public access equals government censorship," which sounds like something out of "1984," they really are in trouble.
Now that we have Peter Suber on our Advisory Board it will be interesting to read his comments. It might also be worthwhile to have an article about Dezenhall if we have someone familiar with the topic.
It strikes me as characteristic of the old way of doing business or government that to avoid reconsidering one's actions and admitting error one just hires a PR person to make things right.
Ec