The data rights of the ROSAT X-ray all-sky survey are with MPE. Scientists at MPE collaborate with many groups outside the institute on the analysis of this large database. A first source catalogue is in preparation and will then be accessible via the ROSAT Archives. Similarly, the WFC data from the all-sky survey belong exclusively to the WFC consortium institutes. A first WFC source catalogue has already been published [Pounds et al.1993]. It is planned that the WFC survey data will become public in the near future.
For the pointed observation phases, all observations originate from proposals sent to one of the data centres in Germany, the UK or the US and screened by both national and international selection committees. Data from the observations, as soon as they become available, are then distributed automatically to the corresponding principal investigator (PI). Usually these data belong exclusively to the PI for one year. In cases, where an observation with priority A or B has achieved only less than 70 % of the scheduled on-target time, the one year proprietory period begins only after automatic follow-up observations bring it to at least the 70 % limit. Due to these rules, data will not enter the ROSAT Archives before the above mentioned rights on the data have expired.
In spring 1994 a reprocessing of all data from pointed observations started. This corrects some early processing errors. For the affected datasets, for which the initial processing (REF 0 processing) took place before January 1993, the reprocessed version will belong to the PI exclusively for a half year period before entering the public archives.