On the Svalbard Islands, near the North Pole, an indestructible archive has been created to store all the main open source software developed by man
In a millennium, what will be left of our society? This question has always tormented the human race and every civilization has tried to perpetuate its memory through art, literature or monuments. Today, some of the most important testimonies of our society are intangible. We are talking, of course, about software, programming languages and digital data. But even these “objects” need care and attention to be handed down to posterity. For this reason, the developers of the GitHub platform have built a huge archive in Svalbard Islands, near the North Pole. It is a true “ark of humanity’s software” capable of withstanding natural disasters, wars and pandemics. The software and computer languages are stored on 186 ultra-resistant microfilm. The media are, in turn, stored inside a safe surrounded by steel walls in an old coal mine 250 metres below the surface of the North Pole.
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An archive at the North Pole will “save” all of humanity’s software
Inside the archive there are 21 terabytes of open software and computer languages like Rubin and Python. To get an idea of this huge amount of data, just think that you would need about 29400 CD-ROMs, 4452 4.7 GB DVDs, 1386 HD DVDs or 2400 single-layer Blu-ray Discs (1200 double-layer) to contain all this data. Obviously, the archive will be updated every time a software or program worthy of being passed on will be developed. “As the codes that are vital to us today become tomorrow’s historical curiosity,” explain GitHub, “their content can be abandoned, forgotten or lost. In the event of a global catastrophe, we may be left without everything we have stored in the modern media. Archiving software using different platforms will help us ensure its long-term preservation”.
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