What does the pressure associated with the growing demand for "open science" to make research data publicly accessible mean for ethnographic research? What challenges, problems, and opportunities are associated with the preparation and archiving of ethnographic research data in repositories, especially for possible subsequent use? Which borderline shifts in the relationship between public and private go hand in hand with making ethnographic data available, and which materials are suitable for this purpose at all? How much effort does the preparation of research materials entail and which publics should be addressed at all? These and other aspects were discussed in December 2021 by a total of nine social and cultural anthropologists working at different universities and research institutions in an online roundtable. The text presented here is the linguistically slightly edited, but otherwise unchanged version of this exchange of ideas, approved by the interlocutors, with which the group would like to stimulate reflection on this central topic.