Last week OEN reported on Bill Tucker’s defense of the $500 million spending measure. Now Gunnar Hellekson (Lead Architect for Red Hat Government) has a post defending the measure as well. From the post:
It’s not at all clear that funding the development of freely available content will crowd out the existing publishers. There is certainly a threat to content publishers if their business model is predicated on controlling access to content. But whether they realize it or not, vendors of textbooks and distance learning programs are selling much more than just content. They’re adding value through packaging, supplementary materials, and either an implicit or explicit certification process. They’re already competing, after a fashion, with programs like MIT’s OpenCourseWare and Open Yale Courses.
Thanks to Antonio Salazar for the link.
