Organization Monkey

i’m still processing the position paper on “open data,” but so far i’m having a difficult time with the practicality of the concept.  the argument falls flat for me because it calls for no restrictions on (certain) scientific data at all, noting that it should be made available for use without permission (or acknowledgment, as far as i can tell from the wikipedia article).  the wikipedia article implies that these data are just laying around somewhere, waiting to be used, but in fact their very collection implies some intellectual authority and that, in my opinion, should be respected and acknowledged.

futhermore, murray states in his paper that “the data be Open and be re-used by someone not connected with the original author without the need for permission or correspondence. Legal, syntactic, semantic and ontological questions must be answered by the data themselves.”  in a community of scientists where the key for “openness” seems to be about a more active communication, why would you make part of your position that you be allowed to shut yourself off from the data collectors?

any feedback is welcome as i continue to process the concept of “open data.”