In the north of mainland Norway there is a secret cave that stores the seeds of the most important plants for humans, in case nuclear war or biological weapons destroy all crops. nature, and stacks and stacks of data in preparation for another kind of “doomsday” .
Microsoft, which acquired GitHub for .5 billion in 2018, is preparing both companies for the apocalypse by locking down copies of projects’ native code stored on the library. GitHub source code.
Arctic World Archive, as the name suggests , is hidden in an old coal mine in Svalbard, an archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It is one of the Arctic regions inhabited and only about 2,000 people live there.
GitHub intends to become the largest tenant of this cave.
Data is stored on specialized ultra-strong film , coated in iron oxide powder for added durability. According to the production company, Piql, the reels should last up to 750 years under normal conditions. It is possible that they could even remain intact for 2,000 years if stored in a cold, dry, and low-oxygen cave.
GitHub intends to become the largest tenant of this cave. They will leave there 200 data disks, each containing 120 gigabytes of open source software code. For example, the first scroll contains both Linux and Android operating system code, plus 6,000 other important open source applications.
According to Piql’s website, the data is stored offline, where hackers cannot interfere. It is also “disaster-resistant” and “one of the most geopolitically safe places in the world”. Customers here besides Github also have Vatican archives, Brazilian land registry records, Italian movies and McDonald’s “Special Sauce” recipe.
This story sounds like a PR stunt – or maybe it really is PR, but either way we see the message Microsoft is praising open source. It’s also understandable because actually open source is behind most of today’s software development.