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New Bill Proposes Open Source Requirement for Publicly Funded Books
fsufitch writes "On September 30th, the 'Open College Textbook Act of 2009' was introduced to the Senate and referred to committee. The bill proposes that all educational materials published or produced using federal funds need to be published under open licenses. The reasoning behind it takes into account the changing way information is distributed because of the Internet, the high price of college and textbooks, and the dangerously low college graduation rates in the US. Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?"
Actually - if you sit down and study most text books, you will realize that most of the content is indeed public domain. English, math, geography, whatever - copyright trolls are publishing nothing new. It isn't like they are researching a new field, and publishing original work. They sift knowledge that is public domain, reprint old, common knowledge, and try to pass it off as unique. In reality, the only thing that might be unique about them, is when some liberal group like the GLBT manage to insert left wing indoctrination material into a text book. None of that trash belongs in education anyway, and the group responsible should be raked over the coals for the attempt.
Education, by definition, is open source.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
One where they want to do stem cell research to cure diseases, but a lot of medievalist retards want to stop them because an imaginary man wih a beard says it's bad.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."