4 ms·

What gives you the impression that it is childish rather then just working with a system they can not change?

• angersock 13y ago
  Issuing FOIA requests to screw over a competitor seems a bit much, right? Then again, there may well be some aspect of this I'm missing.
• wavefunction 13y ago
  There is another option, which is to do your own research and live (and die) by a personal code of ethics. I don't believe that people "sell out," though I do believe that people "buy in." Adhering or conforming to a system you do not believe in is "buying in" to it.
  • foobarbazqux 13y ago
    It's a nice way to think about it, but you have to sell out from one system to buy into another, right?
  • davorak 13y ago
    The follow kind situation is what I think motivates fighting FOIAs: Depending on your field a research could take a few years to develop a technique. The technique by itself will not produce a very valuable publication, but the results it can reveal could be ground breaking. In the grant proposal, in order to convince those who are judging of the value of the technique, you detail some of the hard won technique. A competitor issues a FOIA learns the technique and may very well be able to publish the ground breaking results first. This means years of work and funding have had considerably less benefit then anticipate. It is likely it will be a little harder to win additional grant/funding due to several apparently unproductive years on the researches part.