open access journals: Revolution or evolution?

From EMBO Reports 4, 8, 741–743 (2003) in Revolution or evolution? by Susan R. Owens , about how:

"A shift to an open-access model of publishing would clearly benefit science, but who should pay?"

Well, if the research is funded by taxpayers' money (federally funded research), it would be appropriate for the end user to have free access to such scientific information. This still calls for organizing structure to maintain and disseminate the research in terms of journals and other publications.

An attempt for practical solution is well argued by Public Library of Science (PLoS) founder in A Fight for Free Access To Medical Research:

“The PLoS plan is simple in concept: Instead of having readers pay for scientific results through subscriptions or other charges, costs would be borne by the scientists who are having their work published -- or, practically speaking, by the government agencies or other groups that funded the scientists -- through upfront charges of about $1,500 an article.”
bq. “The shift is not as radical as it sounds, the library's founders argue. That is because government agencies and other science funders are already paying for a huge share of the world's journal subscriptions through "indirect cost" grants to university libraries, which are the biggest subscribers.”

Related:
Public Library of Science - more on open access
Open Access to Scientific Research
open access to federally funded research