To Publish or Not to Publish?
Section 3.1 identify a number of important drivers in favour of publishing public sector and
research data, including citizen science data, and applications as open as possible (i.e.
without restrictions for reuse either for commercial or non-commercial purposes). It is
however clear that not all data can be published openly. In some instances, such as the
case of COBWEB (2.1.3) some of the data may be sensitive (e.g. rare or protected species)
and should only be published in ways not endangering the species in question, either
through aggregation and generalisation, or through the signing of user licenses restricting
certain uses of the data. In other cases, as Omniscientis (2.1.2) the data maybe openly
available but the applications may be protected with a view to exploiting them commercially
after the end of the project. In all cases, as suggested earlier, the rights of the contributors
to the project, whether project partners or contributing citizens, need to be respected with
clear rules of engagement and informed consent about subsequent re-use.