DNA and RNA datasets in public repositories are expanding at an unprecedented pace, creating a global atlas of microbial diversity. While open access continues to drive research forward, it also presents a dilemma: painstakingly collected data are often made available worldwide before the researchers who generated them can publish their own findings. In response, an international consortium of more than 230 scientists, led by Professor Alexander Probst of the University of Duisburg-Essen, has published a roadmap in Nature Microbiology to promote fairer handling of public sequence data.