Merging binaries, code, and personalities: experiences from open-source development

Open source software is as much or more of a sociological challenge than it is a technical one. While the benefits of open-source development are substantial: transparency, shared resources, reduced cost per person, and easier cross-code comparison, it also requires significant effort. Tasks such as code reviews, helping users, and fixing issues add burden and require thoughtful responses. Additionally, as high performance computer systems increase both in hardware complexity (e.g. CPU+GPU, FPGA, etc.) and scale (core counts, number of GPUs per node), the technical overhead of developing and maintaining large, efficient codes necessitates large collaborative efforts. I will discuss these challenges from my perspective with suggestions based on things learned in over a decade of experience in development.