willingness to act in concert over these issues? By joining together researchers forced Elsevier to drop its support for a Bill that would have effectively outlawed green OA in the US. Perhaps not. That incident aside, the omens are not currently great, and discord appears still to be rife (see also here ). Moreover, in pursuit of greater access , most OA advocates appear blind to the larger affordability problem. What they fail to appreciate is that, unless they take a greater interest in the issue of cost, gold OA looks set to prove as much of a financial burden on the research community as subscription publishing has been. In fact, it may turn out to be more costly, and have some highly undesirable consequences as a result. Those looking for a solution to the affordability problem, therefore, may be better to pin their hopes on the likelihood that other countries will spurn rather than copy the Finch/RCUK model. Here the omens seem to be better . Who knows, action taken abroad could eventually persuade RCUK to make a U-turn. Indeed, there is already some evidence of slippage in its position. #### If you wish to read the two-part interview with Ian Gibson, please click on the link below. I am publishing the interview under a Creative Commons licence, so you are free to copy and distribute it as you wish, so long as you credit me as the author, do not alter or transform the text, and do not