Free data has great value, but challenges remain - SciDev.Net

"Although massive amounts of data from sources such as Landsat have become open access, users still face many obstacles....For Landsat scientists, the lifting of the charges meant that, "for the first time we are finally getting our money's worth", says Curtis Woodcock, professor of geography and environment at Boston University, United States. His words may at first appear contradictory but Landsat was never a profitable enterprise. The fees had been generating just US$5 to US$10 million a year for a project that has cost a thousand times more, some US$5 to US$10 billion, to build and maintain since the early 1970s. "There was no chance that the Landsat programme would ever generate sufficient revenues to pay for itself," Woodcock told a meeting, 'The case for international sharing of scientific data: a focus on developing countries', held by the US National Academy of Sciences earlier this year (18–19 April) in Washington DC. This notion that the true value of data is only realised by making access free underpinned the meeting....Open access, however, is by no means free, even when sources such as Landsat waive their charges...."