The genome is fundamental to the reliable encoding and transfer of both genetic code and data. As the project name suggests, &PRODUCT; is the equivalence for software systems. The project started formally in early 2008, though the origins can be traced back several years prior to real struggles within Red Hat IT developing and deploying software. While it may not be the perfect analogy, it is indeed fitting to say that hereditary information is stored within every IT organization. The truth is software systems, like species, face extinction through poor replication of this information. Sadly, the knowledge that is required to maintain and reproduce complex systems often only lives in the form of tangled configuration scripts or, worse still, only in the minds of consulting domain experts. Transfering knowledge in such manners is practically a recipe for building legacy systems. Taking the biological analogy a little further, briefly imagine a world in which generations of genetic information had to be manually replicated by any number of people. Now try to imagine a different world in which genetic information could only be copied exactly, that is to say, diversity is altogether unattainable. &PRODUCT; aims to solve both of these problems for IT; that of reproducing exceedingly complicated systems in a world where heterogeneity is always more of the rule than the exception. As you begin tackling these problems for your organization it cannot be emphasized enough that the collaboration amongst teams enabled by &PRODUCT; is more important than any particular tool implementation. Feel free to mutate &PRODUCT; into any shape or form to solve your problems. The truth is, we readily await your patches and enjoy seeing the best ideas rise to the top.