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Not everything remotely related to the MSL mission is performed by NASA or US government employees. Non-US scientists cannot be employed directly by NASA due to

Not everything remotely related to the MSL mission is performed by NASA or US government employees. Non-US scientists cannot be employed directly by NASA due to citizenship requirements. NASA avoids cutting itself off from the world scientific community as a result by granting contract work to, or simply cooperating with, non-US scientists. Indeed, some of the work "freed" here was performed by European scientists, using NASA data -- which is available to the public in the US and out -- but without a penny of US government funding. These works are certainly not in the public domain. Most scientists would be happy to share their research. Just ask.

derefr 13y ago
> Indeed, some of the work "freed" here was performed by European scientists, using NASA data -- which is available to the public in the US and out -- but without a penny of US government funding. These works are certainly not in the public domain. I think most information-should-be-free advocates are under the assumption that work performed using public data should be public; i.e., that taxpayer-dollars transitively "infect" projects sponsored atop them with taxpayer-ownership, somewhat like the GPLv3 does.
devindotcom 13y ago
Yes, a quick review of the papers shows what you say - the authors belong to a plethora of institutes and centers, American and otherwise. NASA got the data and has made it available, yes? Further work using it is being done by third (fourth, fifth...) parties who feel their work would be most visible in a top-shelf journal like Science. I'm all for liberation of data, and for scientific papers in particular having wide and free dissemination. We should really be working on alternative funding models for research and alternative business models for journals rather than calling out individual teams for putting their work where they think it will receive the most attention.
- mturmon 13y ago
  Yes, the data is free. One link for the calibrated data is: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/subscription_service/SS-20130610.shtml http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/subscription_service/SS-201306... If you really wanted to work with the data, you'd want to get in touch with the instrument team. At this relatively early stage, there will be quirks that will not be corrected for/documented. Poking around with the data is fine, but you might spend a lot of time on something that is a known instrumental artifact. One caveat with this "free" data -- usually there is an embargo period (there was with MSL, something like 90 days). During that first 90 days, a few hundred people came to be resident at JPL where the mission is controlled. They all worked in a few large rooms there, largely on Mars time. So the first batch of papers (some of which are already published) are done by the instrument teams. And this is clearly not a level playing field. (The thing is, those teams worked hard on a lot of un-fun calibration and infrastructure-building.) Other missions have much longer embargo periods (years in some cases), and some have effectively no embargo at all. It's partly about the culture of the discipline.
Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
The work performed by European scientists was probably mainly funded by European taxpayers, and the same argument that American taxpayers should be able to access the work they fund can be applied to Europeans too. As an European taxpayer (and scientist, BTW), I think freeing this work from the paywalls is morally great, even though it's illegal. And paywalled academic journals should adapt or die.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  There is no parallel between "works funded by American taxpayers" and "works funded by EU taxpayers". The un-copyright of works funded by American taxpayers comes from a specific exception in USA laws - there is no such statement in European legislation; so while ethically the situations may seem the same, legally they are very different.

derefr 13y ago

> Indeed, some of the work "freed" here was performed by European scientists, using NASA data -- which is available to the public in the US and out -- but without a penny of US government funding. These works are certainly not in the public domain. I think most information-should-be-free advocates are under the assumption that work performed using public data should be public; i.e., that taxpayer-dollars transitively "infect" projects sponsored atop them with taxpayer-ownership, somewhat like the GPLv3 does.

devindotcom 13y ago

Yes, a quick review of the papers shows what you say - the authors belong to a plethora of institutes and centers, American and otherwise. NASA got the data and has made it available, yes? Further work using it is being done by third (fourth, fifth...) parties who feel their work would be most visible in a top-shelf journal like Science. I'm all for liberation of data, and for scientific papers in particular having wide and free dissemination. We should really be working on alternative funding models for research and alternative business models for journals rather than calling out individual teams for putting their work where they think it will receive the most attention.

mturmon 13y ago
Yes, the data is free. One link for the calibrated data is: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/subscription_service/SS-20130610.shtml http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/subscription_service/SS-201306... If you really wanted to work with the data, you'd want to get in touch with the instrument team. At this relatively early stage, there will be quirks that will not be corrected for/documented. Poking around with the data is fine, but you might spend a lot of time on something that is a known instrumental artifact. One caveat with this "free" data -- usually there is an embargo period (there was with MSL, something like 90 days). During that first 90 days, a few hundred people came to be resident at JPL where the mission is controlled. They all worked in a few large rooms there, largely on Mars time. So the first batch of papers (some of which are already published) are done by the instrument teams. And this is clearly not a level playing field. (The thing is, those teams worked hard on a lot of un-fun calibration and infrastructure-building.) Other missions have much longer embargo periods (years in some cases), and some have effectively no embargo at all. It's partly about the culture of the discipline.

Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago

The work performed by European scientists was probably mainly funded by European taxpayers, and the same argument that American taxpayers should be able to access the work they fund can be applied to Europeans too. As an European taxpayer (and scientist, BTW), I think freeing this work from the paywalls is morally great, even though it's illegal. And paywalled academic journals should adapt or die.

PeterisP 13y ago
There is no parallel between "works funded by American taxpayers" and "works funded by EU taxpayers". The un-copyright of works funded by American taxpayers comes from a specific exception in USA laws - there is no such statement in European legislation; so while ethically the situations may seem the same, legally they are very different.