GitHub is looking to preserve codebases on its platform for future generations. The platform plans to archive all of this for all open-source software it holds, including Bitcoin Core and Ethereum.
GitHub, a Microsoft subsidiary, announced this in an official publication dubbed ‘Preserving open-source software for future generations.
By doing this, the platform seeks to give posterity a chance to learn and understand current software technology and innovations. The announcement says that GitHub will backup all active repositories and store them in Norway’s Svalbard zone, one of the world’s most remote places. Codebases that will be archived also include Dogecoin, the Lightning Network, and several other cryptos and software. The announcement also says that the data will be preserved and compressed in film reels in a “steel-walled” container which will last 1,000 years.
Speaking to Coindesk, a Bitcoin Core maintainer Wladimir van der Laan expressed excitement about the development.
“As a developer, I do find the idea of a future historian trying to puzzle together our civilization from reams of clever hacks, spaghetti code and context-specific source code kind of amusing.”
The archiving will be done via a partnership with the Norwegian government through its Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani mining firm, Microsoft Research, digital preservation firm Piql AS, and others.
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