D Bonsor wrote:
and allow someone else to have ago at solving the structure.
I'd be careful there if there was a motion to try to implement a policy at SR sources (for academic research projects) to make it compulsory to publically release all data frames after a period (1 year ? 2 years ? 4 years) during which you are supposed to solve the structures you have collected the data for, so that others can have a go at it (and solve the structures "for you"):
you may find yourself for example in between grants and need to spend all of your time looking for funding for a couple of years, with little or no staff working with you. With the trend we see of ever diminishing resources, this would mean that the very large and well funded labs and groups would solve their own structures, and solve those of smaller groups as well (and publish the latter). This would then mean (after a while) the concentration of macromolecular crystallography to only the "lucky few" who have managed to secure large grants and will therefore go-on securing such grants. You could call that "evolution" I suppose.
We are already in a situation where the crystallographers who solved the structures are not necessarily authors on the publications reporting the structures... so is it time to go back to home sources (X-ray generators) for data collection ?
Fred.
