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Re: skils recommendations

Well, firstly, I'm sorry I wasn't there (due to an illness in the
family), as it sounds like I missed a terrific meeting.
 
I realize the students are worried about being scooped, and understand
Henk's point. But I'd say 3 years sounds like waaaaaaaay too long to me,
once the survey data flow has reached an equilibrium rate (before then
I'd say it's sensible to hold back). The best way to avoid being
"scooped" is to have our act together and to work like maniacs to avoid
being scooped. The more the world community and groups outside Canada
and France are energized by this project the more exciting it will be
for all of us, the more we in Canada will have an opportunity to benefit
from such synergy, and the more intellectual capital comes from the
survey at the end of the day.
 
We're part of a global community where such long proprietary periods are
not the norm (and yes I know about STScI's policy of not starting the
clock ticking on the proprietary time until the last photon in your
program has been taken). Canada has long benefited from free-ish access
to international facilities and data archives. We've done so for
sufficiently long that we would be outrageously bad global citizens by
going for a egregious proprietary period. And we'd set a bad precedent
that would kick us in the ass in the future. And worst of all, we'd be
advertising the fact that some component of the community thinks we need
an immensely long cushion of a proprietary period to act as a security
blanket in order to do good science with these data because Canadian
astronomers themselves believe they cannot cut it without extraordinary
deals.
 
My vote would be to go for the *normal* proprietary period once the data
flow is established at its equilibrium level. I could even live with 6
months. It's a competitive world out there all right, there's a ton of
pressure to get good science out fast, no doubt about it. So let's get
out there and do it. We ought not try to hide the reality of the fast
pace of progress in astronomy from students.
 
Bob

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Prof. Roberto Abraham             | Office: Rm.1405A
Dept. of Astronomy & Astrophysics | Phone (direct):     416-946-7289
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