Patrick Aerts (DANS, projectleider Software sustainability) vertelt over het belang van het duurzaam bruikbaar houden van software bij het streven naar duurzame toegang tot digitale data. De presentatie maakte deel uit van de Kennisdag Digitale Duurzaamheid op 13 juni 2016, georganiseerd door de Nationale Coalitie Digitale Duurzaamheid / Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed.

1. Data Archiving and Networked Services
Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed
DIGITAAL ERFGOED HOUDBAAR
presents
SOFTWARE SUSTAINABILITY
Patrick J.C. Aerts

2. So, I tried another way, …

3. Three take home messages
 We are losing our history
 Because much of it is digitally born and we lose access
 Treat Software Sustainability and Data Stewardship on equal footing
 At least policy wise
 Invest in education to mitigate the problem for the future
 We still have the legacy to take care of

4. Definitions
• The following definition has been in use:
 Software Sustainability: coding practices (“ethics”) in support of reusability, verifiability and
maintainability of software and the system for availability and maintanance of software.
• But for the current research:
 Software Sustainability: coding practices (“ethics”) in support of reusability, verifiability and
maintainability of software and the system for recovering, availability and maintanance of
software.
• Other definitions are in use as well

5. Coherence and differences
 Data and Software are intimately connected
 Data can not be read, interpreted, handled without the proper software, unless it
is printed matter
 Even for reading ascii-code software is required
 Ergo: Software and data need to be treated in a coherent manner, to secure
future use, re-use, retraceability, etc.
 But Software Sustainability requires quite other technical solutions and expertise
than does Data Stewardship

6. About the report
• The report encompasses:
– Use cases
– Issues and elements of concern across all the domains1
– Specifics of each domain
– More details on the issues
– Conclusions and recommendations
– An account of software categories
1 Domains are the NCDD-partner domains: library, archive, museum, science, …

7. Use cases
• There are over 10 use cases
• The use cases concern:
– The way software has been developed
– The way software is created according to todays insights
– What happens when an organisation, hosting a lot of software, ceases to exist
– A little about the KB’s CD-ROM collection
– A little about B&G’s software
– Preserving games
– Digital archeology: de Digitale Stad
– CATCH
– Born Digital Art

8. Common elements of concern
• Legislation!
– Preservation is a challenge, but the outcome pretty useless, unless legislation changes:
• Making an image of the CD/DVD/CR-ROM, etc. is an infringement of copyrights
• Running software from an image on an Windows 95 emulator is again an infringement
• Keeping a (snapshot) copy of a website is perhaps legal, but
• Offering a service to old websites is again copyrights-protected and so useless for the public
at large
• The problem is particularly complex in the case of “abandonware”
• New are on-line versions of common software: Office 365!

9. More shared issues and concerns
• Physical protection
• Bitrot and linkrot
• (Lack of) original devices
• (Lack of) sources
• (Lack of) documentation and versioning
• (Lack of) structured processes in development
• Old/obsolete languages
• Old operating systems.

10. Specifics per domain
• A scale of growing complexity from science to art:
– In science, the bottom line is: having the text of the code:
• however complex, it is possible to a large extent to grasp the idea’s and
methodology behind the software and reconstruct it.
– In gaming having the software is only half of the effort: what about the Nintendo,
XboX, Wii-experience or playing against many other players over the internet?
– In born digital art the observer’s perception is what interests the artist. Having the
software has no meaning, unless the whole of the contraption is recovered

11. Science
• It’s all about accelerating scientific discovery1
• Reprocibility of scientific output
• Re-usability of code
• Open science, sharing, etc.
• Much orphaned software after project end
• Lack of formal rules agreements on software creation,
sustainability
1

12. Libraries/Archives
• Collections to be saved, but stored on old media, written in old
formats
• CD-ROMS, educational material, art stuff, digital collections
• Obsolete formats: ms word, macwrite, wordperfect, DB4, ..
• Documents and data on obsolete media: tapes, disks, CD-i

13. Foto: Persbureau van Eijndhoven
Gemeenten in de knoop met floppy’s & cd-roms
20 MEI 2016
DEN HAAG
- Gemeenten hebben problemen met het archiveren van informatie die op verouderde wijze is opgeslagen. Het gaat onder
meer om materiaal op floppy's, cd-roms en taperecorders. Deze informatie blijkt inmiddels moeilijk vindbaar, niet
doorzoekbaar en is soms in zijn geheel niet toegankelijk. Dat blijkt uit een steekproef van het vakblad Binnenlands Bestuur
onder 26 gemeenten.
- …

14. Digital archeology
• How to restore complete digital environments?
• For reasons of historic importance
• The Digitale Stad
– More about that in the afternoon
• Importance for the history of computing, coding, modelling

15. Game preservation
• For historic reasons
• With significant public/social interest
• Reviving old games is one, but why was the game a hit?
• Intense interaction between the software and the device
• Special designed devices
• Internet games; how to mimic internet response during a game
• How to cope with licence/rights interactions during a game: on line
check for validity, on-line buying of higher levels, etc.

16. Born Digital Art
• Close interaction between software, hardware and the design of the
artifact.
• It´s all about the perception of the observer
• Digital art is as old as computers are:
• CSIRAC played music!
• How to recover art objects, designed on
PDP 11-1 computers, with handmade
interfaces to color television screens
• (as there were no other color displays yet)
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automat
Computer

17. Further action (government)
• Take caring for cultural heritage seriously
– Don’t let the past 50 years of gained knowledge slip away due to negligence
– Invest in further research to enable software recovery, maintenance and sustainability
in all relevant sectors
– Consider installing a Software Sustainability Initiative for scientific software
– Consider extending that to cover expertise in all domains
– Take action to compile a list of working hardware and peripherals
– And to join forces to set up a museum of (working) computer systems and peripherals

18. Contact information
• DANS: dans.knaw.nl (Data Archiving and networked Services)

19. For Software Sustainability:
 Consider setting up a Software Sustainability Initiative in each country;
 Consider forming a Software Sustainability Infrastructure built on
these national in initatives
 This would add to the visibility and appreciation of the issue
 This would enable easy sharing of knowledge, insights, best practices

20. End-Of-Presentation
Thank you