To participate in freedom (here ‘open’) requires a tremendous amount of effort and thought. The trend George is observing below isn’t surprising. Prioritizing ease of use is expected, as is a general confusion in distinguishing between freedom and choice. I’m speaking about the larger society, but I don’t think it’s irrelevant. In general people choose free/no cost more often than not. Or so it seems. I’m always astonished at the effort invested into getting something for nothing. I’m not sure it’s possible to mainstream the ideology and practice of open source.

Tim Berners Lee Keynote at 3GSM
GSiemens
The reason that I could just design the Web by myself and set it running on a couple of computers without asking anyone, was that the Internet in turn had been designed to be used for anything, constraining its users as little as possible. So this is one of the qualities of an open platform: it is built to enable, not to control, and it does not try to second guess the things which will be built using it.Over the last year, I’ve noticed a big shift in attention and focus on the ideology of open source software (and, if trends hold as they have in other apsects of education) and the parallels in education content. Many educators are proclaiming the value of openness…but are increasingly using closed tools. Content tools with great functionality and ease of use…but which are closed in format. Openness and free are being confused (or, perhaps for many educators, is not something that is important).