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

Use the Archive

Browse

You can 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 allows to browse through it as you usually do with version control system browsing interfaces.

Browse the archive

Save Code Now

You can trigger instant archiving of any source code repository that is not yet ingested in the Software Heritage archive, or that is not up to date.

This complements the regular crawling of software origins that is performed on the main code hosting platforms, and gives you the possibility of ensuring that the code you are interested in is properly archived.

Save Code Now

Archive Research Software

You can archive seamlessly your research software artifacts, and add to your research articles precise references to specific versions of the source code, down to fragments of individual source files. Just follow the link below for the guidelines.

Save research software

Rescue Legacy Code

You can contribute to rescue and curate landmark legacy source code while it is still possible to get hold of it, and talk to the people that created it. For this, you can follow the SWHAP process, developed in collaboration with UNESCO and the University of Pisa.

Rescue legacy code

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:

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.

Learn more and help

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.

Learn more and help

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.

Learn more and help

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…

CEA

Software is key in CEA’s commitment to transferring knowledge from research to industry. With the Software Heritage Foundation, we stand behind the preservation and sharing of this knowledge. — Al…

CNRS

CNRS’s support to Software Heritage, a universal, open and sustainable software archive, is a natural part of our proactive approach in favour of open science, a necessary revolution in which e…

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…

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…

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…

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

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…

Sorbonne Université

Firmly committed to open science, which is at the heart of its project, Sorbonne University supports Software Heritage. By helping to collect and to share software, Software Heritage contributes to on…

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…

AdaCore

A longstanding, stable software repository like the Software Heritage is of direct interest to us, since our aerospace and defense customers are often responsible for projects lasting several decades.…

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…

Software [is our] Heritage

Software is fragile

Software is the key