Open Source Software and Hardware Sharing: Beneficial for Scientific Advancement and Innovation
One important aspect of CERN’s mission is the dissemination of experimental results to advance global scientific knowledge – but the results are not the only output being shared. CERN also has a long history of transferring the software code used by physicists, to benefit the larger scientific community and industry alike. This open source software allows all users to not only use the code under licence for free, but also to develop it and share any improvements made. In addition, some of CERN’s hardware designs are made available through licensing, and these processes are just two elements of CERN’s vision of open science. At CERN, it is firmly believed that this openness can drive innovation and growth and thus maximise the impact of technology on society.
CERN has shown its commitment to transparency by creating several legal frameworks and guidelines which facilitate collaboration and, more recently, by creating the CERN Open Source Program Office (OSPO) which celebrated its first anniversary in 2024. OSPO’s goal is twofold. It aims to provide a service to the internal CERN community by providing advice about open source resources but also actively scouts for external partners to unleash the enormous potential of open source in fields beyond high-energy physics. Interested institutes, companies and startups are encouraged to explore CERN’s open source hardware and software portfolio and to get in touch to investigate potential partnerships.
White Rabbit, a flagship example of CERN open source hardware and software, has found various applications in both academia and industry. It is an ethernet-based network technology that enables users to precision time-tag measured data and trigger data taking in large installations, while using the same network to transmit data. Developed for the Large Hadron Collider, with an open source philosophy, it provides sub-nanosecond accuracy, making it an invaluable asset wherever extreme timing accuracy and synchronisation is essential, for example, for finance institutes and telecom providers. The White Rabbit collaboration, a membership-based global community, created to foster the uptake of the technology by industry and ensure a high-performance open source core, was launched in March 2024.
Another example of a successful CERN-developed open source software is Indico, a comprehensive, web-based event management tool which celebrated its 20-year anniversary in 2024. From humble beginnings as an in-house tool for the ATLAS collaboration, it now has 400 000 users and serves a plethora of academic, scientific, and governmental institutions worldwide. Because of its open source status Indico continuously evolves, as community members contribute to the upgrade and development of the software package.
The CERN community routinely fosters a collaborative spirit and through open science it can be seen that sharing knowledge allows ideas to flourish and is of mutual benefit to all.
