Historians and future generations of developers will be able to unearth early lines of open source Linux, Ruby, or Python code buried 250 feet under the earth’s permafrost layer and, now, in three historic libraries in Oxford, Egypt, and California, thanks to GitHub’s expanding Archive Program.
Announced last year at the code management company’s Universe event, the GitHub Archive Program aims to preserve open source software in much the same way we do works of art, design, or literature. By printing historically relevant open source repositories onto reels of piqlFilm (digital photosensitive archival film), GitHub—which was acquired by Microsoft in 2018—hopes to preserve the open source software movement for future generations.
