Event
Software Source Code as documentary heritage and an enabler for sustainable development
The Software Heritage project, launched in 2016 by Inria (French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology), aims at collecting, preserving, and making readily available the source code of all software ever written, building an essential infrastructure at the service of cultural heritage, digital development, science, industry, and society as a whole.
On April 3rd, 2017, a landmark partnership agreement was signed between UNESCO and Inria to establish a framework for collaboration on preserving the knowledge embedded in software source code, and making it widely available, centered around the ongoing development of the Software Heritage archive within the framework of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme.
In 2021 stakeholders celebrated the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the project. This year, in 2023, they are gathering again to take stock of the achievements and status of the initiative, and to highlight the relevance of its mission in the context of today's dynamic digital innovation landscape.
The half-day event, which will follow a hybrid format of virtual and on-site participation at the UNESCO Headquarters, will focus on three major dimensions of relevance to the Software Heritage archive:
- Acknowledging software as a first class research object in the Open Science ecosystem;
- The role for documentary heritage preservation and digital skills education; and
- Innovation for industry and administration.
Programme
The half-day event, which will follow a hybrid format of virtual and on-site participation at the UNESCO Headquarters, will focus on several major dimensions of relevance to the Software Heritage archive:
- Software source code as documentary heritage and an enabler for digital skills education
- Software source code as a first class research object in the Open Science ecosystem
- Software source code as enabler for Innovation and sharing in industry and administration
- Perspectives on long term preservation
- Technological advances anabling massive analysis of software source code
9:30 Welcome address and opening
- Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO
- Stéphanie Schaer, Directrice interministérielle du numérique, France
- Bruno Sportisse, Inria CEO
- Roberto Di Cosmo, Director, Software Heritage
10:00 Panel on Software Source code as part of Memory of the World
- Claire Gillissen-Duval, Senior Director, EMEA & MEE Corporate Social Responsibility, Global Corporate Affairs, SAP
- Natasa Milic-Frayling CEO, Intact Digital Ltd; UNESCO Preservation Sub-Committee; Professor Emerita, University of Nottingham
- Brigitte Vézina, Director of Policy and Open Culture, Creative Commons
10:45 Perspectives on long term preservation
- DNA storage and the future for long term archival (Marc Antonini, coordinator of the MoleculArXiV flagship project)
- Large scale compression of software source code (Paolo Ferragina, Pisa University)
- The ENEA Software Heritage mirror (Giovanni Ponti, Head of Division for Development of Computer Science Systems and ICT at ENEA)
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Open Science Panel
- Steve Crawford, Open Source Science Initiative Lead, NASA
- Karel Luyben, President of the EOSC Association
- Bhanu R Neupane, Advisor, ICT and Sciences and Open Solutions, UNESCO
12:15 Perspectives from industry and public administration
- Open Source and Open Ecosystems (Alexios Zavras, Chief Open Source Compliance Officer, Intel)
- Building shared infrastructures (Gael Blondelle, Chief Membership Officer, Eclipse Foundation)
- Software reuse for public services through source code sharing (Gijs Hillenius, European Commission Open Source Programme Office)
- Software Source Code as a key for Innovation (Florent Kirchner, SGPI, France)
13:00 Closing and group photo
