Sorry to be just catching up on the holiday email backlog. In my original  
post this thread what I meant was that organizations that have software  
development as a *core* business, such as Microsoft, probably should  consider even 
its code as archival records. For more typical  organizations where this is not 
the case, the retention of code would be  determined based on its importance 
to the organization (based on an appraisal  process) and might be retained for 
a much shorter period or not at all. 
 
Separate from that is the point that IT information -- both hardware  and 
software -- may constitute important records metadata at  least for long-term 
electronic records preservation purposes regarding  how such records were 
created. In the absence of a better solution,  such as is being developed by NARA's 
ERA project, it might be necessary to  retain the actual application software 
and operating systems in which the  records were created. Needless to say this 
is not a very desirable option except  for the short term and even then may 
not be as wise as other migration  strategies. 
 
 
Regards,

Rick

Rick Barry
_www.mybestdocs.com_ (http://www.mybestdocs.com/) 
Cofounder, Open  Reader Consortium
_www.openreader.org_ (http://www.openreader.org/) 

 
In a message dated 12/29/2005 12:02:11 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:   Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:15:58 +1100
From:    "Gerard J. Nicol"  <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: IT  Records

Rick,

It is difficult to class executable code as data  given that you may or may
not have the source.

Executable code never  strictly belongs to IT, in the case of operating
system code it is used  under license from the owner who is usually a
software company.

In  the case of "home grown" code, this is usually the property of  the
corporation, and is not owned by IT per se.

This would also be  the case for any wrapper applications such as JCL or
shell  scripts.

IT will manage the items it either owns or manages via Change  Control tools
such as CA-Endevor and Change Management tools such as  Solve.

Gerard






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