In a blog post on the Github site, Strategic Programs Director Julia Metcalf revealed that the GitHub archiving program was finally completed on July 8 after some delays due to the coronavirus. “Our mission is to preserve open source software for future generations by storing their code in a file created to last a thousand years, “Metcalf wrote.
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The project started on February 2 when the company took a snapshot of all the active public repositories on GitHub to archive in the vault. Working with PiqlThe company wrote 21TB of repository data on 186 reels of piqlFilm (digital photosensitive archive film).
They originally planned to fly to Norway and personally escort the world’s open source code to the Arctic, but the global pandemic foiled their plans. Instead, they had to wait until July 8 to deposit the code in the Arctic Code Vault.
Metcalf went on to explain how the codes came to be in the Arctic vault. “The journey of their code begins at the Piql facility in Drammen, Norway, where the boxes with 186 rolls of film were shipped to the Oslo airport and then loaded onto the belly of the plane that provides passenger service to Svalbard,” wrote the director.
The code was sent to Longyearbyen, where a local logistics company took the boxes and placed them in secure buffer storage overnight. The next day, the boxes finally traveled to the dismantled coal mine located on the mountain.
They were then stored in a chamber inside hundreds of meters of permafrost. This means that the world’s open source code will be preserved for more than 1,000 years.
But that is not all. To recognize the millions of developers around the world who contributed to open source software, Github designed the Arctic Code Vault Badge. This badge is featured in the highlights section of a developer’s profile on GitHub.
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