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marplex
marplex

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Only one open-source project can be saved for future humanity. Which one would you choose?

My answer? Git.

Top comments (21)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Prrrrroooobably GNU/Linux, but I'd love to hear some more outside-the-box replies.

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rubyrubenstahl profile image
Ruby Rubenstahl • Edited

Linux, 100%

I'd love to have a more intersting answer, but it's essentially the foundation of most modern computing. Pretty much everything else I can think of, as important and useful as they may be, are things that could reasonably be rebuilt.

Linux was not inevitable and it's probable that such monumentally huge and complicated project would never be reproduced. It came out of a culture that was rooted very much in its time, and the momentum it gained was incredible. I think it will stand as a unique and wonderful anomaly in human history.

afterthought: Actually, I'm gonna go with Ben and say GNU/Linux. As pretentious as the copypasta rant Stallman went was, Linux as we know it wouldn't be what it is without the GNU project.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

Those are separate projects. I'd go for the Linux kernel 100%; all the GNU stuff is easier to rebuild on top of it.

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phlash profile image
Phil Ashby

Whatever is required to read the GitHub arctic backup..

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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

What's the point of being able to read a backup that's no longer there? 🤔

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phlash profile image
Phil Ashby

I was trying to cheat, assuming that a backup still existed, but I guess the question rules that out implicitly, in which case I choose a hard copy of Wikipedia...

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

FizzBuzz.

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anuragvohraec profile image
Anurag Vohra • Edited

Linux. The rest can build on top of it always.
V8 Would also be in my list, right after Linux

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matthewsalerno profile image
matthew-salerno

TempleOS, I want to watch the world burn.

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Matias Carpintini

Rails :p

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Karan Gandhi

It's really problemtatic to choose one. But GCC probably.This way I would still be able to build free software on top of closed source OS.

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Jon Ashdown

Neo4j. It can be used to make massive knowledge bases of linked data

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Makar

Linux 🖤

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Gianluca Scacco

Emacs