But what if crystallographers work together to establish a public
domain database with all relevant crystallographic data? This would
not only overcome the current situation with 'fragmented' databases,
it would also prevent for becoming dependent from monopolists.

What would be needed?

1. A small team of engaged scientists with some experience in database
and software design to coordinate the project.

2. The authors (i.e. the scientific community = YOU) who provides the
project with database entries (note, that if you have'nt sold your
experimental results exclusively, you are free to distribute the data
to such a database, even if they have already been part of a
publication - and a lot of good data have never been published).

3. Free software a) for maintaining the database, b) for data
evaluation and calculation of derived data (e.g. calculated powder
pattern from crystal structures for search-match purposes), c) for
browsing and retrieval.