Lines of computer code now have their sanctuary
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Lines of computer code now have their sanctuary

To ensure that the knowledge amassed by contemporary developers is not lost over time, an American company is saving thousands of lines of computer code. A digital heritage for future generations, entrusted in part to the libraries of Alexandria, Oxford and Stanford, the world’s leading centres of knowledge.

Literature buffs know it well: libraries are full of ancient knowledge passed down through the centuries. That’s why the American company GitHub has chosen to store a collection of computer code records in the libraries of Alexandria, Oxford and Stanford. An original initiative that allows to preserve a part of our digital heritage for future generations.

GitHub embarked since last summer on an ambitious archiving program so that future historians will have a better understanding of the broad spectrum of open source projects built by developers today. Thousands of lines of computer code have been stored on reels of piqlFilm, a 35mm photosensitive nanofilm that is particularly resistant to the wear and tear of time.

Three boxes entrusted to three prestigious libraries

These treasures of computer knowledge were stored in boxes designed by Alex Maki-Jokela, an artist and engineer whose work is based on 3D printing and art generated by artificial intelligence. “I wanted to create something that was aesthetically beautiful, and that paid homage to the spirit of open source software and the generations of scientists and engineers who designed it,” he explains in a statement.

Three of the boxes have been entrusted to the libraries of Alexandria in Egypt, Oxford in the United Kingdom, and Stanford in the United States, to ensure that the knowledge and information amassed by the world’s developers in recent years is not forgotten. “Preserving knowledge is critically important not only to us at the Bodley Library, but to society as a whole. In this digital age, we must constantly seek new ways to preserve critical information, such as code,” Richard Ovenden, who heads the British institution, said in a statement.

A “safe” designed to last a thousand years!

In addition to partnering with these three prestigious libraries to preserve the main works produced by the free software community, GitHub decided to keep 21 terabytes of computer data in a warehouse built in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, 100 meters deep under the Arctic ice. An atypical place designed to withstand all weather conditions and natural disasters for 1,000 years.

GitHub is not the only institution seeking to build a universal and perennial software archive. Inria joined forces with Unesco in 2016 to launch the Software Heritage project, which aims to collect, organize, preserve, and make accessible, to all, the source code of all existing software. A titanic undertaking that aims to lead to the creation of the “Alexandria Library” of software.

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