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Quantum Computing: LPI on Open Source Communities

14 Aug 2025, Simon Cross

Maintaining a successful open source project is challenging. Most contributors are volunteers (thank you!), and even for those who receive remuneration there are often challenges. Someone might be paid a fixed amount to contribute a specific feature, or might be given permission to spend some, usually small, fraction of their time on the project. As a very immediate example, I’m a volunteer writing this post for QuTiP at 21:30 at night while my wife puts my daughter to sleep.

QuTiP isn’t just any project though. It’s a big 1, mature 2, open quantum systems 3 project, and each of these come with their own additional challenges (and rewards, of course).

That’s why when Andy Oram offered to interview us about running QuTiP, we leapt at the opportunity.

Andy also interviewed two other projects, OQTOPUS and classiq, who have their own unique experiences and stories to share.

You can find the two articles Andy wrote at the Linux Professional Institute blog:

or via the links at the top of this post.

Thank you Andy for taking the time to interview us and for corralling our sometimes rambling responses!

  1. QuTiP is big. We actively release at least 8 separate packages, across two languages (Python & Julia), and maintain at least 14 separate repositories, providing not only the software itself but also tutorials, documentation, benchmarks, and this webiste. ↩

  2. QuTiP is mature. The repository is 14 years old. We’re on version 5 and planning version 6. We’re still going strong. It’s used and worked on by people all over the world everyday. ↩

  3. Open Quantum Systems are complex. Contributing doesn’t necessarily require vast experience (we regularly have excellent contributions from even undergraduate students), but it does require headspace. Getting really stuck into a topic might require reading a research paper or a textbook. ↩