Cereal (C++ library)

Cereal is a popular open-source, header-only C++11 library used for the serialization of data. It was designed to be fast, light, and easy to extend, supporting various data formats such as JSON, XML, and binary. Unlike physical consumer goods, it is manufactured in a digital sense through global collaborative contributions on platforms like GitHub.

The project was originally developed by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC), specifically within the GamePipe Laboratory. As an open-source project licensed under the BSD license, it is not owned by a traditional commercial corporation in the way a consumer brand is. Instead, it is maintained by a community of developers and the original creators, allowing it to be used freely in both open-source and proprietary software projects.