Introducing the Add Forge Now feature
You can now request the archival of a whole forge
The mission of Software Heritage is to Collect, Preserve and Share source code from as many origins as possible. This is a humbling undertaking, as there is a huge number of different code hosting and distribution platforms out there, using different underlying technologies. To harvest their content we face two challenges: the first one is to implement the dedicated components needed to collect and archive the source code; the second one is to discover new software origins and add them to our harvesting loop.
To tackle the first challenge, with help from our contributors and support from targeted grants, we regularly implement new connectors in order to expand our ingestion capabilities (see listers and loaders status pages in the documentation).
As a first step to tackle the second challenge, 3 years ago we launched Save Code Now, a feature that allows to add or instantly update a single repository in the Software Heritage archive. This feature is widely used and actively contributes to the growth and the update of the archive.
Today we are excited to announce a new feature called «Add Forge Now«, which goes one step forward, by allowing any user to propose the archival of a whole forge.
The process for «Add Forge Now» follows a validation workflow, including curation, and verification that the forge technology is supported by Software Heritage tools (at the moment we will only archive «compatible» forges, but when a forge is not supported yet, we suspend the request to keep track of it and process it later when the proper adaptor will become available). The forge administrator is informed of the forthcoming archival, providing an opportunity to coordinate on the technical aspects of the ingestion, if needed.
Yes, this means that you can as of now contribute to improving the coverage of the Software Heritage archive, by simply submitting an «Add Forge Now» request, mentioning the forge URL and the forge admin contact info.