Software Heritage

We are building the universal software archive

We collect and preserve software in source code form, because software embodies our technical and scientific knowledge and humanity cannot afford the risk of losing it.

Software is a precious part of our cultural heritage. We curate and make accessible all the software we collect, because only by sharing it we can guarantee its preservation in the very long term.

Discover our mission

Do we already have your code?

We harvest publicly available source code from many software projects and keep up with development happening there. As of today our archive already contains and keeps safe for you:

Browse

In-browser navigation of the content of the archive is available via the Software Heritage web application.

The web application allows to search which software origins (repositories, source packages, etc.) we have already archived and when we have visited it, implementing a “wayback machine” for source code. Once an origin of interest has been identified, the web app then allows to browse through it as you usually do with version control system browsing interfaces.

Browse the archive

API

Programmatic access to the content of the archive is available via the Software Heritage API.

The API allows to navigate the archive as a graph of development-related objects, such as file contents, directories, commits, releases. With the API developers can lookup individual objects by their IDs, retrieve their metadata, and jump from one to another following links — e.g., from commits to the corresponding directories or parent commits, from releases to released commits, etc. The API also allows to retrieve crawling information, such as tracked software origins and the full list of visits performed on each of them. This allows, for instance, to know when snapshots of a specific Git repository where taken and, for each of them, where each branch was pointing at the time.

Read the API documentation

It concerns all of us. And you can help!

Software is so pervasive in our lives that its preservation concerns all of us. Our mission and the archive we are building will serve the needs of the many, from cultural institutions to scientists and industries.

Everyone can help us achieving these ambitious goals.

Heritage

Software is an important part of human production. It is also a key enabler for salvaging our entire digital heritage.

We collect, preserve, and make accessible source code for the benefits of present and future generations.

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Science

Science relies more and more on software. To guarantee scientific reproducibility we need to preserve it.

Amassing source code at this scale will be challenging, but will also enable the next generation of software studies.

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Industry

Software is present in all industrial processes and products.

The universal source code archive we are building will help industry with provenance tracking, long-term archival, and software bill of materials.

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Initiator

Inria

Software is now at the heart of the majority of human activities: from healthcare to entertainment, planes to agriculture… It is therefore legitimate for Inria to address the issue of preserving…

Huawei

Huawei has been working with the open source communities for decades: we are active contributors in projects ranging from the Linux kernel to cloud native computing and machine learning, and we will k…

Intel

Intel has been at the forefront of open source development for nearly two decades and today is a top contributor to the Linux kernel, as well as dozens of leading projects across technology markets an…

Microsoft

Microsoft has been involved in open source initiatives by enabling, integrating, releasing and contributing to many open source projects and communities for well over a decade. We applaud the Software…

Sloan Foundation

The Software Heritage Archive is an important resource in software preservation, not just as a critical repository of cultural heritage, but also for historical and sociological studies of how softwar…

Société Générale

We are aware of the code’s value for our digital transformation, it has become a major asset for the bank and we firmly believe that we must preserve it in the long term. Open Source lies at the hea…

Gold Sponsors

MESRI

The National Open Science Plan was launched on 4 July 2018 by the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. This plan includes a provision to support Software Heritage, an initiative th…

Open Invention Network

Open source software has been one of the instrumental, driving forces of innovation this century. Software Heritage is an important organization for software, having already archived more than 6 billi…

Université de Paris

By supporting the Software Heritage initiative, Université de Paris continues its commitment to the free and responsible sharing of knowledge and research software. — Christine Clerici, President o…

CAST Software

CAST is strongly committed to helping any software organization willing to leverage open source artifacts. We are proud to support Software Heritage’s noble mission and to collaborate on creatin…

DINSIC

Open Data is the fuel, and Software is the engine of the digital transformation that is driving change in all aspects of modern societies. By collecting, preserving and sharing all the source code …

GitHub

GitHub recognizes the crucial importance of open source software and the work of millions of developers, around the globe, collaborating together. We at GitHub see it as part of our responsibility to …

Google

Free and open source software has always been a vital part of Google, as we use and contribute to thousands of projects. It encourages the development of innovative new technology, and opens doors for…

Università di Pisa

Pisa has been the first Italian University to foresee the future relevance of computer science, and it has committed to its development early on: by supporting the building of the first computer desig…

VMware

To collect, preserve, and share all software that is publicly available in source code form is a tremendous task and a tremendously important one. VMware believes that open source software is an essen…