Preserving Critical Software For the Long Term
The Sovereign Tech Agency is working with Software Heritage to archive and enrich publicly commissioned software, ensuring that the shared digital commons remains accessible, verifiable, and resilient over time.
What we are doing togetherWe are partnering with Software Heritage, the public, non-profit archive of source code, to support the long-term preservation of critical open source software commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency as public digital infrastructure.This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to treating the open source components essential to modern software development as a shared digital commons—something that should remain accessible and preserved over time, independent of which platform the project code is hosted on.Together, we will support and facilitate current and past Sovereign Tech Agency–commissioned projects in becoming part of the Software Heritage archive. Participation will be voluntary and opt-in, with lightweight workflows designed to minimize overhead for maintainers and projects.Projects that are archived will receive persistent Software Heritage identifiers (SWHIDs), along with structured metadata that records the Sovereign Tech Agency’s public investment, such as the program, year, and category. This creates a durable, verifiable reference for the software and its context.We will roll this work out in phases, starting with a pilot involving a small number of projects and gradually scaling to all interested projects. Over time, archiving will be integrated into our regular onboarding processes and increasingly automated, so updates to software are preserved continuously.Why this matters for digital sovereigntyMuch of today’s critical open source infrastructure relies on commercial code hosting platforms. While these platforms play an important role, they are not designed to guarantee long-term availability, traceability, or historical continuity.Even when software is open source, its history and accessibility can be affected by platform policy changes, shutdowns, or project migration. Important context—such as how software evolved or how public resources were invested—can be lost."Open source maintainers build the foundations of our digital world, often without institutional support or long-term preservation guarantees. By partnering with Software Heritage, we ensure that the projects we invest in remain accessible, traceable, and preserved for the long term—protecting both the code and the story of its development."— Adriana Groh, Managing Director of the Sovereign Tech AgencyBy preserving these open source software projects in a neutral, public archive, our collaboration with Software Heritage helps ensure that the technologies developed and maintained through public investments remain accessible and part of an open, international software ecosystem.Why this matters for resilienceCritical software components often outlive the teams, communities, and platforms that created them. Over time, code can move, histories can fragment, and important context can be lost.The Sovereign Tech Agency’s collaboration with Software Heritage adds a layer of long-term continuity for essential open source software commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency. By archiving source code and its development history, the projects remain accessible and referenceable even as platforms, maintainers, or organizations change.Resilience also depends on traceability. Persistent identifiers and structured metadata make it possible to connect software to public investment and to follow its evolution over time. This supports long-term maintenance, reuse, auditing, and recovery.By ensuring that critical software remains available, identifiable, and understandable, this strengthens how we sustain digital infrastructure over the long term.Where we go from hereThis partnership is about more than archiving individual projects. Together, Software Heritage and the Sovereign Tech Agency are preserving critical open source software that underpins research, public services, and digital infrastructure for the future.By combining public investment with long-term archival, we are creating durable references that link software, knowledge, and public investment across time. This makes it possible not only to keep the source code of software available, but also to understand its role, evolution, and impact in the future.We see this work as part of a broader effort to strengthen the sustainability of the open source ecosystem: one where institutions support the continuity, resilience, and researchability of shared digital commons. By participating in Software Heritage working groups and sharing the lessons we’ll learn through our partnership, we’ll help develop practices that others can adopt and build on.Ensuring that critical software remains accessible, identifiable, and meaningful for the future is an ongoing responsibility—and one we are committed to taking on together."Archiving source code is not just about storage—it's about preserving knowledge, enabling research, and ensuring that the work of open source communities is never lost. This collaboration with the Sovereign Tech Agency demonstrates how public institutions can take concrete action to protect critical digital infrastructure."— Roberto Di Cosmo, Director of Software Heritage
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