Global Moderators

The OPF uses GitHub to host and manage all of its software projects. There are several reasons for this:

• GitHub is the biggest online platform for open source software projects in the world.

• Its toolset, including issue management, contribution tracking and code review, is free for open source projects.

• GitHub provides a sustainable home for our projects. If the OPF were to cease to exist, our projects would continue to be available.

Why Should You Use GitHub

GitHub is a great way to get involved in open source software development. It's used by thousands of projects and millions of developers. It's a great way to learn about software development and to build your skills. It's also a way to show off your skills as your work is attributed to you on a public platform.

What if I Can't Use GitHub?

If you really can't use GitHub, but want to contribute to the Hackathon, please get in touch with us on info@openpreservation.org and we'll see what we can do.

We look forward to working and learning with you. We’ll also be listening to you and will cover ad-hoc topics if there is enough interest among the attendees.

To begin, we just ask that you look at the available JHOVE issues and FIDO issues on GitHub. If you see something you’d like to work on, then please add a comment to the issue to that effect. The OPF team will then get in touch as we assign work to contributors.

If you’d like to work on something that isn’t listed, please contact us, and we’ll see what we can do.

If you don’t already have a GitHub account, you’ll need to create one. You can do this here. For complete novices, we will be running introductory webinars covering registration, please see the Hackathon events page for the current program.

Once you have a GitHub account, you’ll need to let us know your username so that we can add you to the OPF organisation on the site. You can do this by emailing info@openpreservation.org.

This session will cover the basics of getting to grips with GitHub. Carl will cover how to raise issues, how to create an account, and why you need to use it.

To assist you through this webinar, here are some helpful resources:

What is a repository?
What is a pull request?
What’s ‘fork'?

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This second session covers how to use Github to host websites and create documentation. Watch this introductory webinar to learn what you need to know to be able to help out in our documentation track over our 2023 Hackathon.

To assist you through this webinar, here are some helpful resources:

• Want to know more about the ‘branches’? See here.

• For more broad assistance: Github Documentation, and GitHub Pages

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The latest release, 2.1.0, was in October, 2022!
See the release notes here.

Check out the first development preview of a new veraPDF-powered application. Building on the great work done by the PDF Association supported by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), veraPDF has developed an open-source PDF checker based on the Arlington PDF Model.

See the OPF news item!

The Arlington PDF Model is an invaluable resource for anyone developing or testing PDF tools. The veraPDF development team have utilised Arlington in a way that’s compatible with the veraPDF architecture. The Arlington PDF Model-based checker can now analyse PDF files against the full PDF 2.0 specification, including errata, by downloading the Java-based installer (Win, MacOS, Linux, requires Java 8+ JRE installed) at veraPDF Software Downloads.

Please remember this release is a development preview, not production-ready software. If you do find any issues, please report them to us via the GitHub veraPDF Library repository.

Our latest veraPDF release is 1.24 - big thanks as always to DualLab, who are instrumental in developing veraPDF and who continue to provide active user support and regular application updates!

The release notes can be found here.

Our latest JHOVE release is the 1.28 Community Release in May, 2023.

See here for the release notes!

A different vibe to academic reading, but the Archives of Tomorrow also have fun free educational materials as part of an illustrative guide series! Shout the author a coffee on their Ko-fi in way of donation.

They've got two new ones coming in the autumn:

• The Illustrated Guide to Audio

• The Illustrated Guide to Film

The National Archives UK play an active role in storing and preserving digital material created by UK government.

They are also the maintainers of DROID (which you can use to identify file formats), and PRONOM (the file format registry).

Their 'Plugged In, Powered Up' strategy was created in answer to the needs of archiving professionals in the digital preservation sector. It offers workflows, case studies, toolkits, and mentoring.