Last week an important and welcome report on best practices in software
preservation
was released. This work has been in progress for some time, and is an
important step
in defining and clarifying good community practice in this often
confusing area,
particularly with regard to intellectual property. Similar processes
have been used with
considerable success to help other communities, such as documentary
film makers, in
recent years.

see

http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/2018.09.24_softwarepreservationcode.pdf

for the report, and there's some valuable context at

http://www.arl.org/news/arl-news/4629-software-preservation-best-practices-in-fair-use-to-help-safeguard-cultural-record-advance-research

There was also a very good session last week at iPres 2018 in Boston
introducing the report, and I expect there will be other presentations
during the fall.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI