One of the great pains of going to college (aside from saying good-bye to your parents, obviously) is that first sucker punch from buying textbooks. Unless you're rolling onto campus with some serious savings or a high limit credit card, that first textbook receipt is enough to make you double over in pain.

And the worst part? Even the used textbooks are costly. You feel like there's nothing you can do about it.

That may not necessarily be true.

Flat World Knowledge is offering what they call open source textbooks. In the world of software and Web sites, open source can mean flexible and easy to manipulate for a developer's needs. But it also means free.

Flat World's idea is to to offer textbooks online that have been written by and received the seal of approval from college professors. Being open source also offers faculty the chance to change and update the content on the fly - instead of waiting for the new version of a textbook to be released.

The deal shakes out well for students because, well, it's free. But on top of that, it also offers students a chance to mark up text, add details and their own analysis to books. Think of it like getting notes and help from a friend in the same class.

Epicenter over at Wired notes that there is already a market for eBooks for college at the moment. But a recent study found that:

It sounds like a pretty solid idea - except you're probably wondering if there is a catch. Namely, how does Flat World make money? They say they'll make a profit by spinning products off of the online books, things like study guides, condensed books and other print products.

It has all the markings of a breakthrough in the textbook world, a wedge to possibly stop the cycle of book buying and reselling (at horrible buy-back rates.).

But I'm left wondering two things: How will Flat World get universities and faculty to buy in to the idea? Ideally a professor would love the chance to tailor books for their class and have more control over what students read. (I won't pretend to think all professors would also like to give their students' wallets a break.)

More importantly, what's to stop "Big Textbook" from taking the same route "Big Music" and "Big Movie" took in halting the online sharing and distribution of what used to be their product. We've all seen how the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America responded to file sharing and the general havoc the Internet has played on their business.

I'm all for free textbooks, but what's to stop the textbook makers to striking back just as hard?

["Open Source Textbooks Challenge Paradigm" - Epicenter]

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