Our relationship with PyBaMM

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At Ionworks we have a vision to build a complete software stack for batteries “powered by PyBaMM” (pronounced pie-bam). Our software solutions have PyBaMM at the core, and we are committed to supporting the growth of the open-source project. As a company we pledge to

1. Always support the best interests of the open-source project
2. Keep PyBaMM’s core battery modeling functionality free for all to use
3. Help foster an inclusive and diverse community of PyBaMM users

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In this post we share our approach to managing our relationship with PyBaMM and its community.

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Open science

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As founders we all have a shared passion for green energy technologies and believe that open-source science and software has an exciting role to play in accelerating our journey towards a clean energy future. For many of the founding team, the first time the science we were working on intersected with open-source software was when we built the battery modeling platform PyBaMM. In 2018 we began developing PyBaMM with the aim of creating a fast, flexible and modular battery modeling framework that would enable multi-institutional, interdisciplinary collaboration, therefore accelerating battery modeling research. Fast-forward to today, and the project has become the central hub of an active community of contributors and users from across industry and academia. We believe the size and vivacity of the community speaks volumes about the success of the PyBaMM project.

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The challenges of open-source

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With success comes challenges. Maintaining an open-source project is resource-intensive, and having a large community of users adds to the pressure on maintainers to ensure the project performs. PyBaMM has received a great deal of support from institutional partners, such as the Faraday Institution, but the future of open-source projects is often uncertain. We wanted to address this challenge by setting up a commercial entity around PyBaMM that could be used to help fund its maintenance and accelerate its growth. Ensuring that PyBaMM continues to exist and is used to help solve some of the biggest climate challenges we face today was perhaps the most important motivation for setting up Ionworks. We want to deliver impact from PyBaMM and provide users from industry and academia with confidence that the project will continue to thrive.

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When we set out to start an open-core business we were always aware of the need to navigate the relationship between open-source PyBaMM and the commercial offering that sits on top. PyBaMM is now a NumFOCUS sponsored project, with its own steering council to look out for the best interests of the open-source project. A maximum of two out of the five steering committee members can be from the same organization, meaning that Ionworks will never have a majority rule. We always want PyBaMM to be the place to go to implement and make use of cutting-edge battery research, and we want to to continue to foster a collaborative and open community.

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Community

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As part of the team who built PyBaMM we are extremely grateful and humbled to be part of such an inspiring community of battery scientists, practitioners and software developers. And that is why we are so committed to making sure the project and everyone’s contributions live on and continue to make a difference.

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