Software Heritage

What is Software Heritage?

A service dedicated to collecting and preserving software in source code form for historical purposes. Software embodies our technical and scientific knowledge, and humanity cannot afford the risk of losing it. Software is a precious part of our cultural heritage, and by curating and making it accessible, we can guarantee its preservation in the very long term Sadly, software is fragile, and we are starting to lose it. Preserving software is crucial because it contains our technical and scientific knowledge and is the means of accessing all of our knowledge. To make this effort sustainable, a vast collective effort is needed. To that end, the service will release all the software it writes for its own needs as free/open source software and openly describe its technical architecture and processes. It will also encourage the emergence of an open network of peers and mirrors that will share the responsibility of maintaining available several copies of all the software collected

Highlights

• Collects and preserves software in source code form for historical purposes
• Curates and makes collected software accessible to guarantee long-term preservation
• Releases in-house software as free/open source and openly describes technical details
• Encourages an open network of peers and mirrors to maintain multiple copies of collected software