Science Commons

The morning session started with a presentation by John Wilbanks about Science Commons. To me, this is one of the most important parts of the entire weekend, but I am biased because I am an advocate of open access. The possible application of FLOSS ideals into the scientific domain has have to be one of the most important questions in the open licensing movement. John talked about the many problems with the academic publishing industry, but specified that Science Commons is not attempting to enter into some of the debates about OA business models.

He did mention some successful examples of the OA philosophy that use CC licences, such as BioMed Central, and Rice Connexions.I didn't know about Connexions, so I am grateful for this, it looks like a great resource.

There was mention by both John Wilbanks and James Boyle that there are some serious considerations about the porting of licences for patented materials, and this is an area that requires more research.