Openness as a complex code word for a variety of digital trends and movements has emerged as an alternative mode of "social production" based on the growing and overlapping complexities of open source, open access, open archiving, open publishing, and open science. This paper argues that the openness movement with its reinforcing structure of overlapping networks of production, access, publishing, archiving, and distribution provide an emerging architecture of alterative educational globalization not wedded to existing neoliberal forms. The open education movement and paradigm has arrived: it emerges from a complex historical background and its futures are intimately tied not only to open source, open access and open publishing movements but also to the concept of the "open society" itself which has multiple, contradictory, and contested meanings. This paper first theorizes the development and significance of "open education" by reference to the Open University, OpenCourseWare (OCW) and open access movements. The paper takes this line of argument further, arguing for a conception of "open science economy" which involves strategic international research collaborations and provides an empirical and conceptual link between university science and the global knowledge economy. (Contains 15 notes.)