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"At a time when we have the technologies to enable global access to and distributed processing of scientific research and data, legal and technical restrictions are making it difficult to connect the dots. Even when research and data is made public, it's often locked up by regimes or contracts that prohibit changing file formats or languages, integrating data, semantic enrichment, text mining and more. These restrictions sharply limit the impact of published research, and prevent us from exploiting the potential of the Web for accelerating scientific discovery. In the Scholar's Copyright Project, Science Commons develops tools and resources for expanding and enhancing open access (OA) to published research and data. We believe that knowledge-sharing systems and formats based on the paper metaphor block innovation, and that open access is prerequisite for finding new ways to reap the value of the vast amounts of public research now being produced. For details on the resources we offer, continue reading below."

Software Foundation (FSF) announced the winners of the annual free software awards during the GNU/Linux conference LibrePlanet, held on March 21-22 at Harvard Science Center in Cambridge, MA. Creative Commons was honored with the Award for Projects of Social Benefit, and Wietse Venema was honored with the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Presenting the awards was FSF founder and president Richard Stallman.