Dear Sir/Madam,

 

 “Auditing Classes at M.I.T., on the Web and Free” (April 4, 2001) was the most positive piece of news I’ve read in a long while, and more than makes up for President Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto protocol - which was expected anyway and may after all turn out to be a blessing in disguise (see unpublished letter: “Bush's rejection of the Kyoto protocol - perhaps a blessing in disguise” from March 30). Allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs from the article:

 

"Selling content for profit, or trying in some ways to commercialize one of the core intellectual activities of the university," Professor Lerman said, "seemed less attractive to people at a deep level than finding ways to disseminate it as broadly as possible."

 

"Fundamentally, they proceed from the same ethic, which has to do with sharing," Professor Abelson said. "In the Middle Ages people built cathedrals, where the whole town would get together and make a thing that's greater than any individual person could do and the society would kind of revel in that. We don't do that as much anymore, but in a sense this is kind of like building a cathedral."

 

Could this herald the moral revolution on which the economic and social revolutions necessary to save our threatened planet will be based?

I think it might.