 Values are closely connected to discussions about norms in the open science movement. Vazire (2018) and others invoke norms of science—communality, universalism, disinterestedness and organised skepticism—in setting the goals for open science, norms originally articulated by Robert Merton (1942). Each such norm arguably reflects a value which Merton advocated, and each norm may be opposed by a counternorm which denotes behaviour that is in conflict with the norm. For example, the norm of communality (which Merton called “communism”) reflects the value of collaboration and the common ownership of scientific goods since the norm recommends such collaboration and common ownership. Advocates of open science see such norms, and the values which they reflect, as an aim for open science. For example, the norm of communality is reflected in sharing and making data open, and in open access publishing. In contrast, the counternorm of secrecy is associated with a closed, for profit publishing system (Anderson et al. 2010). Likewise, assessing scientific work on its merits upholds the norm of universalism—that the evaluation of research claims should not depend on the socio-demographic characteristics of the proponents of such claims. In contrast, assessing work by the age, the status, the institution or the metrics of the journal it is published in reflects a counternorm of particularism.