Github Archive Program for Open Source Software
What is GitHub Archive? How does it work?
GitHub Archive is an amazing initiative designed for supporting and preserving open source software code (considered as “the shared heritage of all humanity”) for the future generation.
Forced by COVID-19, thousands of organizations & companies over the world are going through the digital transformation. Adopting the technologies and/or creating the software from scratch, we often forget about the ethical side of software development.
- Have we built the right architecture to scale?
- Is our code reusable?
- Will our applications continue bringing maximum value even in five-ten years with minimum fixes/ upgrades?
At Jellyfish.tech, we not only cover the short-term customer request for product discovery, roadmap, MVP, or adding new features to the existing application. We also care about putting long-term value by working on the improvement of maintainability, rethinking the software architecture, and pushing the up-to-date technologies that could save our customers time & budget. And getting on the GitHub Archive Program is the sign we’re going in the right direction.
Interview with the contributor
We’re proud to say our CTO, technical consultant, & Python developer Roman Latyshenko become one of the contributors to the archive:
For this purpose, I’ve made a little interview with Roman asking him about the project, GitHub program, his attitude to open source & future plans.
L: Which of your projects got into an archive?
R: I was lucky to work as a backend developer for MetaCell, a major provider of software for neuroscience. They were building a Scientific Dashboard for the validation of computational scientific models against experimental data.
I was responsible for creating a table aimed at automating the process of scientific model validation. The interactive table fetches the test repositories data from GitHub, making it easy to execute unit tests locally or in the cloud using SciUnit & NeuronUnit (L: check the SciDash case for more details).
L: Were you aware of contributing to the program?
R: I was contributing to the open-source project, but I couldn’t even imagine this project would get into the Github Archive.
L: Did you know about the program before your project got into the archive?
R: Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of this project before I’d got on the list of Arctic Archive contributors. So I think it’s important And now I’m happy to share this initiative with you.
L: Are you interested in digital science projects? Which technologies can you use for their successful completion?
R: I definitely think digital science projects will be useful for thousands of people. How can I not be interested in changing our lives for better? Or at least assisting in doing so.
The truth is it’s extremely hard to be engaged in digital science without any scientific expertise. So I’m rather a technical consultant who helps implement already formulated ideas.
Over the past few years, I have been working closely on the integration of scientific projects into Jupyter Notebook and got a hang of it. My chemistry background also helps me do more for digital science applications.
L: Can you assume your programming skills can help people?
R: If applied rightly, why not. The main thing I understand right now is that my main goal is not just to code. I’m struggling to create a valuable product that will make people’s lives easier.
L: Have you ever thought of how your code could help the future generation?
R: I believe my offsprings will be much better coders than I, really.
L: Will you encourage the developers at Jellyfish.tech to create & grow their own open-source projects?
I don’t force people to create their own open-source projects. But if a developer from my team takes the initiative, I’m always ready to help.
L: Will you contribute/ develop open-source projects in the future?
R: Actually, I already have some open source experience.
My first open-source project is from my ancient past: the module for PHP framework Kohana, inspired by the similar one in Django for management and form generation.
And the second one is ongoing: my own Python microframework for web applications that concentrates on data and its transformation.
I do think open source is the future, but unfortunately, I don’t always have enough time to develop my project properly.
Bottom Line
Today, dozens of major technologies are open source. We have a lucky chance to improve them with our own hands. Besides, the contribution to open source helps us make awesome things together, growing our skills and meeting amazing peopleā.
Do you have your own open-source projects? What is your reason for developing them?