The New York Times has published a piece on the state of textbooks called, $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math. One choice quote from the article:
Ms. Colby of Houghton Mifflin puts the state of affairs politely: “I think the open-source movement is opening a whole new conversation, and that is what is exciting to us.”
I suppose the feral fight-or-flight response the textbook industry feels as it stares at the growing open textbook movement could be called “exciting.” The story focuses mostly on Scott McNealy, formerly of Sun, and his contributions to the Curriki project.
I am also against free textbooks.
But I am more against profits made by publishers paying their CEO million $ salary.
Digital technology simply reduced the price of digital books. Only thing you pay to the author that is 10 % of the book retail price.
Therefore all books should be sold at 10 % of the original price. ven that can be reduced if one gets some ads frelated to subject matter author can make more money.
Please have vision. Do not drawn in the details.