I agree that "open washing" is widespread and that "openness" is a kind of marketing. But I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing, nor do I think it calls into question a speaker's commitment to openness. What's the problem if Shirky produces open content in order to market himself?

The rhetoric of openness should definitely not be used only for marketing purposes. In this sense, I agree that a commitment to the idea of education as a public good is important. Both you and David Parry were right to call out MLA when they were engaging in open washing. But there's also a distinction that I think is important to retain: producing open content doesn't mean that ALL content you produce has to be open. You can produce OA knowledge and still publish other content in traditional venues or use open content to get great public speaking gigs. I don't see hypocrisy there.

BTW, I'm not saying that your article makes these rhetorical moves, but I can see someone interpreting them that way.

Ooh, before I forget, what's your captcha plugin?

MOOCs are different from previous online learning mechanisms because along with providing information, they register a user's achievements in the class.

Previously, only predatory institutions like universities could do this, even though they are several centuries out-of-date. While information has been open online and on paper previously, credentials are now being also made more open.

While credentials are no longer controlled by predatory institutions, prestige is still controlled by predatory institutions. The universities will loose their control when humanity becomes rational. That will never happen.

@Roger
There's no problem. The key is being, well, open about it, isn't it. Fessing up to the marketing function rather than saying nothing or hiding it under the pretense of "democratization" or some other uber-virtue. Shirky's certainly less "guilty" (if that's the right word) than many, and I don't mean to single him out in particular. He's just a part of the larger trade-book-as-speaker-calling-card culture.

PS - The captcha plugin is custom code.

Thanks Ian this helped me. My background is as a photographer not an academic. When I wrote some undergraduate classes for a university in the UK and then opened them up online lots of people came (almost 35,000 last Sept-Dec) and since then I've been asked to talk about MOOCs a lot.
I didn't know what a MOOC was until recently but my classes aren't moocs - my classes are open undergrad classes which live on and leverage the internet. The students experiences (good and bad) do act as a profile raiser for the classes and the Uni but most of all they act as network-hubs for the students themselves.
My point is that you've helped crystallise these differences- thanks. jw

I love the idea of point 1, taken to its extreme open should mean public infrastructure to support learning. That is the open I want to be a part of. Also, I heard about your talk on Ms. Pacman recently and was intrigued, the idea of hacking Ms. Pacman to make a game better than the original is in line with the idea of open, but not so much as a virtue but as prying loose.