There has been many open/free publications in the scientific community. The basic idea is that if most of the work (writing, formatting, reviewing and selecting) is done by researchers for free anyway, why should the same researchers (or their institutions) pay for the privilege of accessing these papers.
Such efforts remain marginal because in my experience the tenured professor who decides which work to publish where tends to select well established commercial outlets which supposedly have a better name/impact/reputation/fame and all that goes with it.