August 05, 2003
The Washington Post has a great article on the Public Library of Science. PLoS is "a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource." They are publishing scholarly research in scientific journals and making the content freely available online. They're also advocating for laws that would make all government supported research public domain.
According to the Post:
The PLoS plan is simple in concept: Instead of having readers pay for scientific results through subscriptions or other charges, costs would be borne by the scientists who are having their work published -- or, practically speaking, by the government agencies or other groups that funded the scientists -- through upfront charges of about $1,500 an article.