The dataset/database of freshmeat/code is quite interesting on a historical perspective of free software. Do you think that the owner would be able to share freely the database? Someone in contact with them?
That's a good question. The group that are looking at creating a replacement site are definitely interested in this point. ESR commented on his blog that he'd reached out to someone, so we'll see what happens there.
This would be a nice addition to http://ckan.org/.