Here’s the central conundrum of the open access debate: you can’t find anyone who’s actually opposed to it. Really. For all the grandstanding and arguing, the fiercest opponents and supporters alike tend to support the underlying principle — that freely accessible data would be a boon to the greater scientific enterprise. In an ideal world, most everyone agrees, there would be no restrictions on scientific results. It’s the real-world practical concerns that provide the point of contention.

Open Access: What Does It All Mean?:

The pure form of open access is considered research that’s made freely available for reuse in any way another scientist might dream up. In general, as long as the original author is credited for what’s his, any other scientist can add to the work with no strings attached.

Many Flavors of Open Access:

When people refer to open access journals, there are actually a number of different models that they have in mind. Nick Fowler, head of strategy at Elsevier, breaks them down into the four main flavors.

An Acquisition, an Association, and a Celebration:

In the past month alone, the movement for open access saw a number of milestones. For starters, the group celebrated its first holiday — Open Access Day was held on October 14, with a number of organizations taking note of the occasion. Community bloggers made a special effort to raise awareness for the concept, releasing essays, videos, and other materials to introduce unfamiliar scientists to it.

PubMed Central: The ‘Mildly Destabilizing’ Compromise:

PubMed Central has become a critical component of the scientific research landscape, but 10 years ago it was just a gleam in Harold Varmus’s eye. Originally conceived as E-Biomed, the vision was far more broad-reaching than what eventually became PubMed. “The original idea for PubMed Central was probably too radical,” Varmus says. “I probably went too far initially.”

Reluctant Publishers and the Birth of PLoS:

Pat Brown, Michael Eisen, and Harold Varmus have become the face of the Public Library of Science, but none of them ever set out to be a publisher.

[Hat-tip: Michael Eisen]