Software Heritage sponsors meet at UNESCO’s headquarters
The mission of Software Heritage is to collect, preserve and share all the available source code, for the benefit of all.
In the long journey we have undertaken, we are delighted to have established a strong partnership with UNESCO, starting with the Inria and UNESCO framework agreement on the preservation and sharing of the source codes of software, followed by the Paris Call to recognize the importance of software source code, support its preservation, and sustain free and open source software communities through the exchange of the knowledge, and leading more recently to the publication of the Software Heritage acquisition process for rescuing landmark legacy software.
This ambitious and long term undertaking requires to grow an extensive network of sponsors, partners, mirrors and supporters, sharing the vision of building a common infrastructure that caters to the need of culture, industry, research, and society as a whole.
At a meeting organized on UNESCO’s headquarters on February 4th 2020, we have been delighted to bring together over 30 participants, representing the expanding network that supports our mission, to learn about the progress made so far on Software Heritage’s implementation and contribute to the discussion on the next steps and strategic directions for the next years.
This meeting was the occasion to welcome 3 new sponsors : Université de Paris, Open Invention Network and Huawei. and was attended by representatives from:
- public bodies, including the DINUM and the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation,
- academia, including the Université de Paris, the University of Pisa, the University of Bologna, DANS and ENEA
- the private sector, including companies and organizations such as Microsoft, Intel, Société Générale, Huawei, GitHub, CAST, FossID as well as the Open Invention Network.
Among the many highlights of the meeting were the recent landmark agreement with GitHub, in the framework of the GitHub Archive program, the increased support from Microsoft Azure to the Software Heritage infrastructure, and the Software Heritage Acquisition Process developed together with University of Pisa and UNESCO.
The role of Software Heritage as a player in the policy space was also highlighted, in particular through the organisation of the expert meeting that lead to the the Paris Call, and the significant effort devoted to preserving software development and sharing platforms from dangerous provisions in recent evolutions of copyright law.
Looking at the future, particular attention was given to one of Software Heritage’s goals: building a sustainable research infrastructure for software as a pillar for Open Science, enhancing connections with national and supranational bodies, such as the European Commission, and other intergovernmental agencies.
As of February 2020, Software Heritage has archived more than 91 million software projects.
If you want to be part of this great adventure and help us to build the source code’s library of Alexandria, you are welcome to jump onboard: take a look on the different sponsorship program possibilities and contact us!