A crucial particle physics computer program risks obsolescence

It seems to me that this field has no choice but to find a way to continue maintaining FORM. I understand it is niche, but there obviously needs to be large-scale institutional investment, like there has been for linear algebra packages. I work in an engineering software that predates FORM by almost 20 years, and I am acutely aware of the learning curve associated with scientific computing code written in FORTRAN and C. Overcoming the curve is crucial as a researcher, and I personally don't return to other tools because of the flexibility allowed by the more onerous program I use.

Looking at the FORM source code, it is well commented and only appears to be a few dozen routines. It makes me confident with some investment and the right folks, it can be maintained and improved for the scientific community into the future.

Due to the incentive structure of academia, which prizes published papers, not software tools, no successor has emerged. If the situation does not change, particle physics may be forced to slow down dramatically.

Since 2000, a particle physics paper that cites FORM has been published every few days, on average. “Most of the [high-precision] results that our group obtained in the past 20 years were heavily based on FORM code,” said Thomas Gehrmann, a professor at the University of Zurich.

Seems like a self correcting problem?

I would guess that one of the U.S. National Labs specializing in particle physics, like Fermilab or Berkeley Lab, would take over maintaining it. Seems to me that it would cost very little for one of them (considering a billion dollar budget) to maintain it.