PubScience Debate

[Andrew I. Mutch]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very familiar with PubScience
and its content or its users. However, I have been trying to follow the
debate over its demise through the various articles published online.
Today's News.com article:

Government agency pulls Web site 
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-966824.html

included a statistic that stated:

"the government subsidizes 80 percent to 90 percent of scientific research
and development within the private sector with billions of taxpayer
dollars"

if this is the case, why shouldn't that information be freely available?
I'm disturbed by the position that if a private sector entity is making
the information available that the government should not be making that
same information available, even when it is the result of taxpayer
dollars. If this concept was followed to its logical conclusion, a whole
range of resources like maps, historical documents and other data would
have to be removed from library and government web sites to avoid
competition with commercial providers. This seems to benefit only a few
select corporations at the expense of the public as a whole.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI