The Aaron Swartz Legacy?

White House Grants Aaron Swartz’s Wish: Taxpayer-Funded Research Will Be Free

Aaron Swartz, a well-known Internet activist who killed himself last month, believed that information should free, not digitized and put behind pay walls.

“The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations,” he once wrote.

The Obama administration just granted his wish — at least as it pertains to research funded by taxpayers.

The White House directed federal agencies on Friday to make the results of federally-funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication. The new policy came “>after more than 65,000 people signed a petition asking for expanded public access to the results of studies paid for by taxpayers.

“Americans should have easy access to the results of research they help support,” John P. Holdren, the president’s senior advisor on science and technology, said in a memo announcing the new open-access policy.

White House Grants Aaron Swartz’s Wish: Taxpayer-Funded Research Will Be Free

Well, it’s something but it can become so much more. Swartz wanted to free up information for the use of all mankind. This is a step in the right direction. We can build a world of free information free of corporate or government control. We owe it to Aaron to fight hard for a better Internet, a better world.

James Pilant