Open Science vs. Intellectual Monopolies

Here's a key section from the new Royal Society report "The scientific century: securing our future prosperity":

Science thrives on openness - the free exchange of idea, knowledge and data. Changes to the way that information is shared are already accelerating developments in certain disciplines and creating new approaches to research. This openness can create a tension with the need to capture and exploit intellectual property. But it also presents an opportunity for scientific collaboration and innovation.

Well, maybe it creates a tension because intellectual monopolies are fundamentally antithetical to science and knowledge. Maybe the scientific community needs to realise this, and ought to refuse to compromise on its basic tenets of sharing knowledge for the greater good, not least because the shift from analogue to digital is magnifying their importance. Maybe the report should have been less pusillanimous in this respect. And maybe, because it wasn't, it will be yet another case of words, words, words...

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Defining the Limits of Digital Britain

“Digital Britain” sounds like one of those embarrassingly feeble attempts to make dull things trendy, like “Cool Britannia” a few years ago. Alas, that impression is not dispelled by the contents of the interim report of the same name, released yesterday. It's got lots of the right words, but doesn't really seem to have grasped what they really mean to a digital native.

On Open Enterprise blog.