Open science: why is it so hard?

"I could never get excited about open access. I find it annoying that I cannot download papers freely, but astrophysicists have already solved this problem without any government intervention or lawsuit. Indeed, nearly all recent astrophysics papers are on arXiv. What matters is the culture: physicists care about being read, they love the web. In this sense, open access is a short-sighted fight. Thus, a much more significant vision is Nielsen’s open science. Michael Nielsen is arguing for a culture shift in science: from a science obsessed with individual performance (and publications) to a science culture resembling more that of open source software or wikipedia. I fear however that despite all the (well deserved) press that Michael Nielsen’s latest book has been getting, too few people understand the importance of this shift. It is not about becoming hippies. It is not a socialist utopia. On the contrary, the system we have right now is akin to an highly regulated industry. All power is in the hands of the government and a few large organizations (universities, publishers) working in tandem. The barrier to entry is maintained artificially high. Open science is really about creating “open markets” with freer exchanges....If you are one of the thousands of members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), then you are indirectly supporting this new legislation [SOPA and RWA]. Indeed, the ACM and IEEE are members of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The AAP is a lobbyist for both proposals...."