Add to the many benefits of OA: Digital books and magazines are at least two orders of magnitude more efficient than the print equivalents. These calculations may be back of the envelope, but they point to the urgent need to move to a more sustainable distribution system for the health of our planet and the long-term benefit of book and magazine publishing.

Shambhu Ghatak has written a report on the Workshop on Knowledge Commons (New Delhi, January 18, 2008). (Thanks to Subbiah Arunachalam.) Excerpt: On January 18th, 2008, Knowledge Commons, Delhi Science Forum, IIT Delhi, Red Hat and Sun organised a workshop on science policy for a very select group of 20 policy-makers.... The objective was to look at the Free and Open Source model of knowledge creation and examine the impact it can have on India. The highlight of the event was the session on Open Source Drug Discovery, a $34 million programme to fight diseases like tuberculosis, that are prevalent in India....