Manage the MAX IV Laboratory Control System as an Open Source Project

Free Open Source Software (FOSS) is now deployed and used in most of the big facilities. It brings a lot of qualities that can compete with proprietary software like robustness, reliability and functionality. Arguably the most important quality that marks the DNA of FOSS is Transparency. This is the fundamental difference compared to its closed competitors and has a direct impact on how projects are managed. As users, reporters, contributors are more than welcome the project management has to have a clear strategy to promote exchange and to keep a community. The Control System teams have the chance to work on the same arena as their users and, even better, some of the users have programming skills. Unlike a fortress strategy, an open strategy may benefit from the situation to enhance the user experience. In this topic we will explain the position of the MaxIV KITS team. How “Tango install party” and “coding dojo” have been used to promote the contribution to the control system software and how our projects are structured in terms of process and tools (SARDANA, GIT... ) to make them more accessible for in house collaboration as well as from other facilities or even subcontractors.