This seems fair to me, but I'm not the one who's being told, "Look, find a breakthrough in a year or you're going to get scooped by an amateur."

It would be ironic and painful if open data policies resulted in scientists leaving the public sector, and I'd really like to see more open data.

Seems like the guy requesting that certain data be collected is due some measure of academic credit for having the foresight to know what question to ask, even if someone else "scoops" them on the analysis.

Sure, sometimes the right question will be starkly obvious, but no system is perfect.

> Seems like the guy requesting that certain data be collected is due some measure of academic credit for having the foresight to know what question to ask, even if someone else "scoops" them on the analysis.

I'd agree, but my knowledge of the academic community is that credit goes by published papers and, secondarily, how often you get cited. This seems like one of those things where we just don't have a great system for giving people credit, and the one we do have is problematic.

(Wealth is like that, too. Also, resumes.)

Which is where things like figshare [0] work well. You can publish datasets/figures and you get a citable DOI for free. I published code there that my wife cited in her PhD, without having to do the usual computer science thing of writing a paper about it and having people cite that.

Disclaimer: I work for a partner company.

[0] http://figshare.com/

I would recommend: http://www.gigasciencejournal.com/

This is exactly how it works and that data can be found here on the MSL PDS Archive: http://geo.pds.nasa.gov/missions/msl/index.htm

I think the standard release delay is six months. Though I'd say its less about exclusive access to data than it is about ensuring the consistency of that data. MANY things change in the early days of a mission.