Sustainable Computation—Foundation for Long Term Access to Digital

Digital assets, such as digital documents, databases, and interactive games, can be instantiated and used only through computation by executing the software programs that enable users to experience and interact with the digital content. Prior efforts to secure access to digital assets focused primarily on the persistence of data and program files and less on ensuring that the software can run in the contemporary environment. In this paper we emphasize the importance of computation. In fact, we argue that the task of preserving digital assets is the task of enabling computation by which digital content can be used in the contemporary computing environment. We discuss three approaches which, to various degrees, rely upon the original program and data files to provide access to digital content. We expect that all three will be required to cover a range of scenarios and requirements. As we depart from the use of original programs and files we are faced with the issue of assessing the results of the replacement programs and files. That, in turn, requires a clear understanding of the value that the original assets entail and the metrics and methods to assess how that value changes when alternative computation and files are used. In order to address these issues, we propose a research agenda that focuses on the principles of sustainable software engineering to enable computation and preserve the value of the digital assets.