SOURC3

A Web3-native decentralized software development platform; built by and aligned with developers.

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Inspiration

The simple inspiration for SOURC3 was born out of co-founder Alex's observation that there were no Web3 development environments for developers to develop Web3 projects (and also the proliferation of open source developers leaving the Web2-based public software development arena).

The team initially hypothesized that the lack of privacy features with existing version control platforms, could be a major driving force behind the developer exodus; however, after conducting research and discussions with CTOs and senior technology leaders, we identified that developers were leaving legacy platforms due to:

>> A general lack of Web3-native software infrastructure

>> Broken compensation and reputation models for coders

>> Deteriorating Web2 model including increasing user censorship, SPOF, lack of data privacy and trust in centralized big tech

What it does

After revising the original concept, SOURC3 is being developed as a trustless open source software development platform.

Naturally decentralized, SOURC3 will be community-governed and focused on contribution provenance, code origin and code ownership. The decentralized approach, allows users to own and manage their data: helping to facilitate new compensation models for open source developers (e.g. Tea, Valist, etc). The SOURC3 Keeper Network will be responsible for content curation and the validation of all contributions on the platform - this process will allow SOURC3 to generate a comprehensive professional reputation for developers.

How we are building SOURC3

After revising the original concept, we're focussing efforts on SOURC3 being a decentralized and trustless open source software development platform, that mitigates any and all censorship, while ensuring the proof of origin and ownership of developers' code.

As high-level outcomes, we need to provide users with the ability to create decentralized git repositories using blockchain with IPFS and ensure seamless git integration.

To achieve this we have created two main modules:

Decentralized application: running in the browser and pulling data from the blockchain and IPFS. The DApp allows users to 'view' and 'create new entities' such as Organizations, Projects, and Repositories.

Desktop application: runs to provide the integration of a new Git helper object that supports 'sourc3://' protocol; allowing 'cloning', as well as 'fetch' and 'push' changes to SOURC3 repositories.

Challenges we ran into

Process optimization for Git in a Web3 environment

In order to achieve 'good' performance - and performance that is comparable to incumbents - we had the challenge of optimizing the process of moving Git data and metadata to IPFS and blockchain.

On-chain vs IPFS

Another key performance and data integrity challenge has been to resolve the design tradeoffs of what data should be stored on-chain versus what data can only be stored in the IPFS.

Supporting multi-chain

A core infrastructure challenge that the team is solving, is ensuring we develop a flexible platform architecture that can support multiple blockchains, and integrate with several decentralized storage solutions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As we approach the 6-month mark for SOURC3, we now have our SOURC3 Alpha available - a milestone reached in under 4 months from the start of coding - and testers onboarded.

As a team, we've achieved great collective collaboration with a number of communities, including Startup with Chainlink and Smoothie.so, and we continue to grow our own Discord and Twitter communities.

Although not strictly an accomplishment, the recent issues surrounding TornadoCash and the subsequent GitHub account bannings have further compounded the team's conviction for the need for a decentralized Git solution.

What we learned

EVM is king.

Changing habits is hard, but doable, developers want new platforms that serve their needs better, and they are willing to change even during ongoing development. We learned these from a questionnaire we posted and got +60 replies from tech leaders and CTOs.

Centralized companies are willing to and will censor users regardless of the implications to those users. While not a groundbreaking revelation, the actions of GitHub in recent weeks have proven the “doomsday” scenario SOURC3 has been talking about for months.

There are no good attestations for professional reputation online, let alone on-chain. For web3 to proliferate, there is a massive need for on-chain IDs and reputation solutions and tools.

What's next for SOURC3

From the Alpha output, we will be driving to the Beta, taking all of the input and feedback from the community with us.

Establishing the Reputational score computation is a critical 'what next' for the team, requiring rigorous testing and input from the community.

When a mainnet launch date is within sight, we will aim to onboard 10k developers to the SOURC3 environment within a 12-month period. This period will coincide with the SOURC3 utility token launch.

Complete decentralization of SOURC3 to ensure the platform and all data is completely immutable.

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