End-to-end test of open-source hardware documentation developed in large collaboration/team settings

Abstract

Large international collaborations of scientists explore the frontiers of our knowledge and discover game-changing phenomena that captures the imagination of the public worldwide. Whether investigating the human genetic heritage or the collision of enigmatic cosmic objects, it matters not. They all use hardware technology on the bleeding edge of human capabilities, often more akin to art than engineering. That is why we refer to these efforts as instrument science. The enormous cost of these endeavours are often measured in billions of dollars and thousands of human years, inevitably fully funded by the international taxpayer.

The support of the people is critical for success in fundamental sciences and it places the welcome burden on their hardware developers. Similarly to their data, they have to produce open source hardware that is fully documented and open to all, after all we the people paid for it all. Therefore, large scientific collaborations are an excellent opportunity for a case study in best practices implemented while developing open source hardware. We studied several international collaborations funded by the National Science Foundation of the United States. We evaluated many facets of the open source hardware development, including practices, awareness, documentation, longevity. We found that indeed large collaborations are extraordinary teachers, role-models, and test-systems for open source hardware development policy, control, and practices. We summarize the experiences and resulting recommendation with special emphasis of aspects and lessons learned where the open source hardware community can learn from the collaborations and vice versa.