Building the Universal Archive of Source Code A global collaborative project for the benefit of all

International audienceSoftware is becoming the fabric that binds our personal and social lives, embodying a vast part of the technological knowledge that powers our industry, and fuels innovation. Software is a pillar of most scientific research activities in all fields, from mathematics to physics, from chemistry to biology, from finance to social sciences. Software is also an essential mediator for accessing any digital information. In short, a rapidly increasing part of our collective knowledge is embodied in, or dependent on software artifacts. Our ability to design, use, understand, adapt, and evolve systems and devices on which our lives have come to depend relies on our ability to understand, adapt, and evolve the source code of the software that controls them. Software source code is a precious, unique form of knowledge. It can be readily translated into a form executable by a machine, and yet it is human readable: Harold Abelson wrote "Programs must be written for humans to read", 1 and source code is the preferred form for modification of software artefacts by developers.