Open science is a term that is being used in the literature to designate a form of science based on open source models or that utilizes principles of open access, open archiving and open publishing to promote scientific communication. Open science increasingly also refers to open governance and more democratized engagement and control of science by scientists and other users and stakeholders. This article begins by examining the dimensions of open science including the ethics of science and the peer review system before defining open science in terms of "wiki science" or "science 2.0." The article then briefly scrutinizes the future of open science, commenting upon the nature of open distributed knowledge systems and new models of production and innovation based on peer-to-peer systems. (Contains 6 notes.)