Software Archeology
[Another argument for standards, open source, and open source code repositories.
What value do these provide? All the information available on my original personal web site, at http://www.armory.com/~leavitt/ is still accessible. Why? Because it was created and deployed using open, standard data standards (HTML and ASCII text).
-Thomas]
Prowling the ruins of ancient software
[…]
With new programs replacing old and no major company or institution playing the central role of source-code archivist, the amount of software history currently circling the memory hole is scarily large. And even if there were a central institution, recent changes to the copyright code have made the transfer of source code from old media to new forms of storage a dicey prospect, legally. Add it all up, and you have the ideal makings for what some are already calling the “digital dark age.”
“Things are going to be lost not because people don’t want to save them or because the original creators don’t want to save them, but because they can’t save them,” says Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, an institution that has lobbied for a safe harbor within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to shield institutions looking to archive source code.
For Booch, the barriers to software preservation aren’t so much legal as educational. Most developers have come to accept the evolvable nature of software programs. What is lacking is the ability to examine static source-code snapshots with a scholarly, comparative eye. In the interest of encouraging that skill, Booch this fall will lead a seminar on software archaeology and preservation at the newly reopened Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.
“Our industry has had a major effect in changing the world,” says Booch, talking over the phone from his Denver, Colo., office. “It would be great if we could preserve the artifacts and interview the architects while they’re still alive.”
[…]
