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MIT’s free courses are a hit with geeks–some as far off as Ho Chi Min City, according to a recent Wired article.

Lam Vi Quoc negotiates his scooter through Ho Chi Minh City’s relentless stream of pedal traffic and hangs a right down a crowded alley. He climbs the steep wooden stairs of the tiny house he shares with nine family members, passing by his mother, who is stooped on the floor of the second level preparing lunch. He ascends another set of even steeper steps to the third level and settles on a stool at a small desk, pushing aside the rolled-up mat he sleeps on with one of his brothers. To the smell of a chicken roasting on a grill in the alley and the clang of the next-door neighbor’s metalworking operation, Lam turns on his Pentium 4 PC, and soon the screen displays Lecture 2 of Laboratory in Software Engineering, a course taught each semester on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Here,” he says, pointing at the screen. “This is where I got the idea to use decoupling as a way of integrating two programs.”

Earlier I suggested that publishers offer e-books at discounts to people in developing countries. MIT, however, is making online versions of 2,000 courses free via the Net–to everyone, no matter where they live. Perhaps publishers can try this with at least older books. O’Reilly, in fact, is experimenting with accelerated release of books into the public domain without geographical restrictions.

Good efforts. Now imagine the benefits of genuine national digital libraries in the TeleRead vein in the States and even developing countries–with provisions for compensation for writers and publishers of new books.

(Wired piece spotted via Boing Boing.)

 
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