Leader: Open systems, open minds

Openness is about more than just Linux

Physicists will be the first to benefit from the world's biggest computing grid, being built to help process the vast amounts of data which will flow from CERN's particle smashing experiments.

It's rare that the public sector, and in particular scientists working on something as obscure as this, are at the forefront of computing innovation. But with this grid - because of the huge amount of information they have to deal with - they are.

And because they have to juggle budgets to get the project done, like everybody else, the work they are doing can hold lessons for the private sector too.

It seems that openness is the key; whether this is in the form of commodity hardware which can be swapped out when it wears out, or open source software.

And as one of the people running the project points out, it needs openness towards other contributors, because much of the success of the project relies on them being able to persuade others to join in.

There's a broader point to be made here - the more open a system, the more likely it is that you will encourage others to contribute and use it.

Much time is spent debating how open a system should be from a relatively narrow technology point of view - but how much time is spent making sure that a system is open to the users who might actually want or need to use it?

Thinking about open systems in the broadest terms might not be the stuff of nuclear physics - but it might help projects get accepted a little more smoothly.