In late January 2023, the Society for History in the Federal Government (SHFG) called for papers for their annual conference. SFHG is dedicated to supporting historical work by federal employees, enhancing the scholarship of researchers using government sources, and supporting public access to federal history in all its forms. The society themed the conference around digital projects, electronic records, and public outreach. Looking backward to the archive closures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, SHFG sought to showcase new forms of scholarship necessitated by limited access to physical spaces. Looking forward to the National Archives and Records Administration’s upcoming mandate that all federal agencies manage their records electronically, the conference organizers recognized that the digital would increasingly define how federal records in history are accessed, preserved, and distributed.

Why Historians Talk about Technology

At the time, I was working on a public digital humanities (DH) project that relied on NIH databases of contemporary and historical scientific research papers. Contributing to SHFG’s conference seemed a great way to talk about my project and learn from others with more experience. Finding colleagues to participate in a panel was surprisingly easy. I knew another student in my department who was experimenting with DH techniques, and it was reasonably easy to find other grad students with similar interests at nearby universities. However, we all worked on very different digital projects, ranging from natural language processing to UI/UX design for public-facing educational websites. Some of us had done DH purely in an academic context, while others had experience working full-time for government-sponsored historic preservation and research projects. Nevertheless, we found a throughline that thematically connected our diverse DH experiences.

We decided to focus the panel on the potential for a strong reciprocal relationship between digital humanities practices and the principles of public history. When federal agencies create accessible archives, scholars involved in digital humanities can more easily create projects that inform the public about the federal government’s activities and raise awareness of the resources and tools made available through government agencies. Conversely, digital humanists who think critically about sustainability, preservation, and other public history principles can create new datasets and archives that become lasting contributions to the body of material maintained by federal agencies. This theme emerged from discussing our trials, tribulations, and successes when accessing federal records for our projects. At the same time, those who had worked in the federal government had seen innovative DH projects begin, expend significant resources, and disappear quickly because the project team had not considered the project’s sustainability and longevity in their planning.

DH and FOSS

Here, we finally arrive at the FOSS acronym in the title. FOSS stands for “free and open-source software” (also known as FLOSS, free/libre and open-source software). In many ways, FOSS is more of an ideological movement than a description of a particular computing practice. FOSS advocates promote users’ freedom to understand and modify the software they use. To create this freedom, developers make the source code for their software publicly accessible and often accept community contributions to the codebase. FOSS software starkly contrasts with the proprietary, commercialized “black boxes” that web users interact with most frequently. As shown by recent scandals around Twitter changing API rules, the continual angst around what content the YouTube Algorithm does and does not promote, and public scrutiny of Microsoft’s use of Windows 11 user data, proprietary software can behave in ways contrary to user’s interests without their knowledge.

While the “F” in FOSS stands for freedom rather than cost, most FOSS software is accessible without payment. This feature of FOSS can create problems, but it has numerous advantages for DH. For projects like mine, using FOSS or free (even if not open source) software can make the endeavor much more sustainable and less resource-intensive. Machine learning techniques and interactive, dynamic websites are frequently accompanied by large code bases, backend servers, and other web infrastructures that developers can only maintain with continual funding and significant technical expertise. In my SFHG presentation, I hope to foreground the potential of FOSS software to align DH projects with minimal computing principles and make them more accessible and sustainable in the long term.

Looking beyond DH, FOSS also has the potential to alter current economic arrangements drastically. Proprietary software extracts enormous economic value from individuals and private businesses. Intellectual property rights associated with proprietary software have shaped the development of computing technologies. FOSS might provide a viable alternative to this model. FOSS projects often face challenges in terms of their sustainability and longevity due to the absence of legally enforceable revenue streams. The failure of FOSS projects can have an impact not only on the FOSS community but also on proprietary projects and users who know nothing about open software. In the second part of this article, I will delve deeper into the ups and downs associated with FOSS.