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Mirrors

Towards a distributed and multistakeholder infrastructure

Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

— Thomas Jefferson


In order to prevent information loss, and simplify access to humankind’s software heritage, we are building an international network of mirrors

A mirror is a full copy of the Software Heritage universal source code archive, operated in agreement with, but independently from the Software Heritage organization. 

This page lists the entities that have already signed a mirror agreement, and provides an overview of the technical and legal requirements to become part of the program.

We look forward to see a variety of institutions from all around the world becoming progressibely part of the mirror program.

Our mirror partners

ENEA

Faithful to its mission of public service, ENEA is proud to establish in its Bologna Center the first italian mirror of Software Heritage, contributing to preserve humankind’s source code, and a…

October 3, 2019

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Requirements

In order to establish a mirror of Software Heritage, it is necessary to fulfil two kinds of requirements: on the one hand, the availability of the technical expertise and resources needed to deploy the necessary infrastructure; on the other hand, the ability to satisfy the legal requirements needed to sign a mirror agreement.

Technical requirements

A mirror contains a full copy of the archive, which involves provisioning the infrastructure for hosting a large object store and a very large graph. An overview of what is involved in operating a mirror can be found in our documentation, that is updated regularly and includes  the mirror architecture reference and various how-to guides.

There are many different options to deploy a mirror, but there are common overall requirements that are presented on a dedicated page in our documentation.

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Legal requirements

An organization interested in hosting a mirror will need to sign a legal agreement that details the various rights and obligations, and the interaction with the Software Heritage organization. In particular, this includes the committment to:

  1. respect the mirrors ethical charter, and establish an ethical charter aligned with the Software Heritage one
  2. establish terms of use aligned with those of Software Heritage, both for API access and for bulk access to the data
  3. deal with archive contents, and especially personal data, in a manner aligned with the Software Heritage content policy
  4. ensure proper operation of the mirror for a minimum of three years. 

Ready to host a mirror? Let us know!

You have read the technical and legal requirements, and your institution has the ability and interest to become a mirror? Please tell us more by filling the form below! If the form does not work properly, you can also send the same information to mirror-inquiries@softwareheritage.org