The Guardian | Publish university science for free, urges web creator

Academics attack fee-charging publishers

Richard Wray
Tuesday August 30, 2005

A group of UK academics including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, has called on the government and public bodies that fund academic research to ensure anybody can view publicly funded research for free on the system he helped develop.

In an open letter to the science minister Lord Sainsbury and Research Councils UK (RCUK) - which brings together Britain's eight public backers of research - Sir Tim and seven other academics have launched a stinging attack on moves by traditional scientific publishers to prevent the public dissemination of research...