Of course. MIT is not in the business of selling information, and never has been.
What is curious here is that MIT and others appear willing to expose this fact to a public which may have previously accepted some sort of knowledge-education-class position association. It may be that, through market research of some kind, they have determined that the public view is changing anyway. Or, since class relations are becoming more authoritarian, they may not care. Gordon Fitch
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What I think Yoshie was referring to by ``a catch may lie future class relations'' is the appropriation of whole courses into a multi-media format and then presented to students, for credit, thus completely by-passing the need for a teacher. So, in effect the capitalist class, embodied as the university has automated the production line of eduation and elimenated the need for labor, aka the teacher. The possibility becomes much more realistically achievable and acceptible or sellable with computers, high speed connections, and the internet.
But MIT, Cal, Cal Tech, Ohio, etc has always been in the busines of selling information and knowledge. I mean that's is what they do. Textbooks, teaching materials, as well as all that specialist and scholarly stuff and then the really expensive custom shit, case studies, medical research, weapons development, and even the really really expensive stuff like extra special secrete algorthims and so forth.
Anyway you know this, so maybe that isn't what you meant. What did you mean?
Chuck Grimes
Please lets change the subject heading---its too long to fit in my usual mail subject line box, so I have to type it blind.