The Open Road
Stephen Downes,
Japan Times,
Jun 11, 2013
I have once again found myself enmeshed in one of the interminable arguments with people supporting open licensing. It happened after I posted some tweets saying Creative Commons should promote all its licenses equally. It boiled over in the discussion lists where once again I was accused of being everything from anti-profit to pro-commercialism, and told that if I wanted to participate in an open access research project, I should just change my principles. I am honestly tired of this endless discussion, and I simply don't have the same resources to throw at this that the publishers and marketers have. But I'll say, for the record, that it's wrong to say that a resource is "free" and "open" only if you can charge money for it. I make the point in a story about roads, which will be my last word on the topic for the foreseeable future. If the people supporting free and open learning really want to be toadies for the marketing class, well they can go ahead and do that. If they ever decide to support free and open learning resources where people don't have to pay for them, they can talk to me and we'll move forward on that basis. Me, I'm taking the Open Road, even should it prove to be the road less traveled.
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