Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin code in Github, https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin is one of the software that will be included to be preserved for generations to come.

https://i.imgur.com/wFi5z4K.png


source here (https://archiveprogram.github.com/).

People were saying that Bitcoin can survive a nuclear war, now we know that there's at least one place that stores its source code for very long term. I wonder if there are any other places that store Bitcoin's source code, maybe owned privately or also be some organization? Relying on Github alone isn't great, ideally we'd want multiple independent sources.

it is kind of cool but weird at the same time in my opinion. it is cool that they are "archiving" all these popular projects but on the other hand when a project is already popular it is shared by many people, specially a project that is for a decentralized system such as bitcoin. archiving it on a centralized database is a bit weird...

Preserving the code for future generations to come is absolutely a good idea, but are they really helpful for those generations? I would say a partial yes and no answer for it. There are both merits and demerits associated with the preservation of code for such longer centuries and generations to come. Speaking from a historic point of view, the Earth after few centuries would be completely different than what we are today and people would be using a newer technology or might have moved completely to a newer invention to come and what not?

For instance, a 100 years back may be at 1920s people would have never thought they can speak with people on the other side of the globe or they can connect with the other side of the globe in just a few seconds. People would have never had an idea that there would be no usage of physical money in future and everything would be digitized. Hence, someone from 2120 would be way more different than what we are today and the current technologies could be childish for them!

So, development seems to be rapid and drastic within 100 years but what would be the position of globe during 3020? No one ever really knows if the current homo sapiens would survive to that extent or might get destroyed within few centuries. Elon Musk is planning up for a Mars settlement in a few decades so probably in 3020 people would be travelling between planets? Quite interesting to hear isn't? Can a future developer understand this far more backward under-developed code written in a language which he can't even understand?

The blueprints for Saturn V are lost and probably a space shuttle of such a huge mass can never be reconstructed again unless we have the exact construction plans of them. Similarly, a code might be great today but do they sound astounding after decades and centuries? Histories and futuristic thoughts are mind-boggling, but can we survive another 1000 years without hitting an asteroid? In the event of space-time these decades and centuries long development could be considered as few microseconds and nothing more.

People of the distant future might be ridiculously sophisticated than what we currently are in this generation. Codes might not be the same as what we have them today, and just for comparison, C and Python. C is a mix of different jargons and weird syntaxing whereas Python is useful across all platforms with simplicity and easy to use codes. Then again, C is still usable in today's standard competing against the larger, broader proglang in the market. Why? It is because these ancient coding languages are the basis of some of the modern proglangs that we have today. History is quite an impressive teacher, I must say.


And most technology that we have today are concepts that were already established a hundred years back--even a thousand years!--albeit being primitive in form. The usage of the wheel has been around since the Roman times; the idea of a helicopter was proposed as early as the Renaissance in times of Da Vinci; the first undersea cable, the Transatlantic telegraph cable was laid down in the 1850s to make communication from East to West perfectly possible albeit the physical separation of two distinct points of land.. I could go on and mention technology that were available back then and still operational and used widespread today. As for the concept of physical cash, it is still here today, isn't it? Digitizing money wasn't even a thing until the '90s and early 2000s through electronic bank transfers, but then again we still use physical cash alongside digital currencies, so overall, moot point.



As I've said above, most technologies of today--or possibly even the future--are just improved iterations of what already exist. For primitive code, that's why you have tech historians that study just the thing in order to understand these things as accurate as possible.

Have you even wondered how Man transcribed what was written in the Rosetta stone and Dead Sea Scrolls albeit being written in an entirely unrecognized language? Yep, historians and scholars.



True, but where do you think space engineers and Elon Musk get their idea of building rockets with higher thrust-to-weight ratio? From previous iterations of rockets that were constructed before. You don't necessarily need to know what the blueprints are bit by bit in order to create the same thing; you just have to understand why and how it worked. Then comes the math, science and engineering aspects of everything, piece by piece as if you are building a jigsaw puzzle from memory.


The Eiffel Tower remains to be one of the most astounding and most beautiful piece of construction ever built, and that is even with centuries of futuristic building concepts laid in front of it (thanks, Gustave Eiffel). Same with code. It might be as crude or as primitive as it looks, but when people figure out how it helped shaped the world that they live in currently, it becomes great and amazing to their eyes. Bitcoin? First mover advantage, literally opened people's eyes about the possibilities of currency way beyond fiat. Lots of great ideas spawned after it. Do you think people would just easily forget? I don't think so.

As for the asteroid hitting Earth, astronomers have the capability to predict whether an asteroid would be dangerously close for an impact or not, and for the next couple of centuries, there aren't any asteroids or any near-Earth objects that would be hitting our lovely planet. Heck, if anything, we would be the ones destroying this lovely place, who knows.

Agree. Still, not a bad idea. I believe some people will use a torrent to preserve it. Or even uploading it on multiple cloud storage. I think torrent is still going to be a better place for a somewhat better decentralization.

This decision from Github is a form of appreciation of the impact that the Bitcoin source code had on the world.
When it comes to keeping the source code for the future generations,the dichotomy "centralized vs. decentralized" doesn't matter.It's OK for the source code to be kept on both torrents and centralized servers.
This is a historical event and the future programmers will honor it.

The keyword here is "preserved", doesn't matter if it's going to be on centralized or decentralized. As long as the goal is to keep it safe in the next hundred or thousands of years so that  people in the future can analyse and see the evolution of those softwares, (not just bitcoin).

Good counter discussion you have over there.

Very much true. Python is one of the popular and successful implementations of C language. Moreover python is certainly easier to write, faster in execution and easier to learn from a newbie perspective. I have very minimal knowledge on python, but still C and C++ have better memory allocation and usage while comparing it to a language like python. This is one of the primary examples why C and C++ are still have superior usage in security critical applications. While comparing it to a language like python which has its roots from C, C is very much older and mature in terms of security and robust usage. We still do use the same telescope which was invented by Galileo but a exception with major advancements. We rely on older technologies still, but in the rapid development phase which are foreseeing will it be the same for the future generations?

Good point. As I have already stated above, for these past years there were developments but they weren't as fast as we are experiencing right now. Considering the development of civilizations over 5000 years, we are still living in a civilization but in a more modern way. Similarly were the developments from the periods of Before Christ, there were usage of vehicles driven by animals and with the invention of motors we are making them automated, but these were just over in a 100-200 years and not really too early.

A physical marvel is completely different from technological development. Does a search engine like Google or Yahoo which was way different years back looks the same even today? Facebook has lost most of its followers and audience today and only a very few do login regularly, but I never say the same would happen for bitcoin in may be 200-300 years later. We could also never say that bitcoin would be irreplaceable even with future developments in tech.

I have been going through a read on NASA's Ion Engine which is going to be tested to redirect the future asteroids which might pose a danger to Earth.

The idea is an honorary step for future generations and part of the human heritage that will be preserved even if there are major changes in the ground from a meteorite collision or any disaster hitting the world.
Also, I am not worried about storing centrally, because if a disaster occurs, there will not be a large number of people to worry about centralization or hyperinflation.
Also, Bitcoin will remain valuable as long as people use it.