GitArch — A decentralized Web3 Take on Software Development and Version Control
Introduction
In the last decade, developers who created code and took version control seriously were exposed to platforms like GitHub or GitLab. These products are helping teams to develop and manage code around the globe. They’ve been an absolute essential in most software developing companies, so to an extent, they have been an absolute essential in the life of everyone. Especially for the crypto ecosystem, they were an integral part of its success and progress in the last years.
GitHub and GitLab are enabling a lot of ideas to come to life. But this concentrated power comes with big problems Web2 endeavors oftentimes bring with them, Censorship. In recent months, we have witnessed how this concentration of power could turn into complete annihilation for individuals, projects, and even projects who got punished just by association with the aforementioned groups.
When the US Government declared overnight Tornado Cash as unlawful, GitHub complied in a second and deleted all repositories of individuals involved in any way with Tornado Cash. Even open-source code used by Tornado Cash got flagged down, and the users were banned. The intellectual property of whole careers got deleted in seconds just because of an arbitrary decision from one government. Even projects unrelated to Tornado Cash got their code destroyed as contributors had been involved at some point in their careers with the now blacklisted Tornado Cash project.
This was an extreme case that showed the public that developers may be developing the code themself on these platforms, but they never have true ownership of their code. They can lose access to their intellectual property when a third party decides Removal of multiple problems faced by developers around the globe, dependent on a single entity, should be one of the highest goals to guarantee a steady flow in developing new projects. The question arises of how legitimate a decision from a single government is to erase the intellectual property of multiple global entities.
What is Gitarch?
Gitarch is a truly decentralized and censorship-resistant hosting service for software development and version control using Git.
InvArch aims to compete with Github in the near future. The beta has all the basic functions found in GitHub as well. For Web3 developers, Gitarch can prove to be more powerful than GitHub as Gitarch is a dApp, which means it’s directly deployable into Virtual Machines. Additionally, it aims to be the first truly enjoyable user experience for developers to collaborate with other developers in the Web3 space.
GitArch does not compromise on UI and UX, as a developer who can use GitHub, can use GitArch without changing their workflow.
Developers deploying code on Gitarch are not hosting their code on a centralized black box. Instead, they self-host their code on the Tinkernet blockchain. Through self-hosting their uncensorable code, they achieve true code ownership. For the average user, this is a peace of mind feature, but for developers who develop more delicate code, this can become an absolute game-changer.
If Tornado Cash developers had written and pushed their code on Gitarch, all the aforementioned problems would have been avoided. There would not have been any way where this code and everything affiliated with the creator of these lines of code would have been censored.
A Revolutionary New Way to Empower Developers
GitArch will introduce an interesting mechanism. Because of its Web3 nature, open-source code can be automatically traced back via tethered ownership tracking to its creator. This opens up a lot of opportunities and incentivization for developers.
So far, developers who created open-source code were only credited when their code got used in other projects. In the future, developers can receive royalties when their code gets used in for-profit projects. This creates a better economy for a lot of developers and empowers developers around the globe. This empowerment will, in return, inspire developers to produce better code. A flywheel of empowering developers and producing great code could be set in motion.
Logically this means that projects which use the code for non-profit projects will not need to pay royalties to the creator of the code.
It’s easy to see how lucrative and empowering this business model can become for people in the industry. One does not need to affiliate themselves with projects or businesses if not desired. Instead, it will create a market for developers who can develop their open-source ideas. If these are useful, they will get used in projects. Some percentage of the earnings of the projects will get kicked back to the original developer who helped create the successful project with their open-source code.
Excursion: Adoption of the $TNKR Token
This developer-friendly framework will play a substantial role in the widespread adoption of the Tinkernet blockchain on a token use case level. As Tinkernet is not a DeFi-driven network, it does not aim to capture value like other DeFi-focused chains. It instead aims to give projects the framework to build L2 protocols on top of the InvArch network. These L2 protocols can be DeFi driven and capture value, in the sense of how Ethereum provides its framework for protocols to build on top of it and captures their TVL.
The massive adoption of Gitarch and dApps which are built on the InvArch network will drive the use of the $TNKR token as a currency for many dApps, just like how Ethereum is used for gas to navigate the ecosystem.
There are plans to unlock more premium features for GitArch users who decide to stake part of their tokens to secure the blockchain.
Advantages of Using Gitarch
The advantages of GitArch over its competitors seem obvious. GitArch aims to be a Web3-based privacy-focused development platform, where developers own their own code. Through the nature of Web3, developers can work together seamlessly with other developers or deploy their code directly into Virtual Machines. This allows for collaboration on a deeper level for all involved parties.
GitArch being censorship free is one of the most important feature being deployed. GitArch will bring censorship resistance to a new unknown level. Smart contracts were developed to create an immutable and trustless room where logical executions are handled. This is already a very powerful tool, but it has its disadvantages, especially regarding scalability. With the INV4 toolset, and through GitArch, it will be possible in the future to improve the scalability of smart contracts.
Gitarch takes this a step further as Gitarch will be the first platform to give fully decentralized ownership of the codebase. Changes to this codebase can be fully decentralized as well. This means that not just the logical execution, but the whole codebase will be censorship resistant. As shown in the case of Tornado Cash, Github is for many things the single point of failure. A single company could drastically break programs and apps. It is not even necessary that this company has gone rogue, as just a simple instruction from a government where GitHub needs to comply with is enough to set in motion which will bring down a lot of programs, apps, and protocols.
Unstoppable Code for Developer DAOs
With that in mind, it is just logical for code to evolve to where it cannot be stopped except by its creator. Truly unstoppable and immutable code. To go one step further, this code could be community governed. With the implementation of the DAOist CDK, code could be owned and governed by a fully Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Uncensorable, but accessible for eternity.
As certain protocols have already displayed to a degree, it is likely that over the next generation, we will see more protocols coming out, which are removing the government’s ability to have power over these protocols. These entities will face truly unknown resistance. To successfully go through such a path, it is absolutely crucial that the code on which these technologies are based will be immutable and unstoppable, except by its creators. For bigger codebases, decentralized governance control from the people will be a necessary path and GitArch will be the necessary tool to achieve this.
To highlight this concept once more. Even if the government could shut down every RPC endpoint in the world, you could still access Gitarch via using light clients, which will be implemented on the InvArch Network. To take this one step further. To shutdown GitArch every single node across the globe who hosts the InvArch or the Tinkernet Blockchain would need to be taken down. A scenario which seems highly unlikely.
Summary
The more disruptive the technology is, the less welcomed it is by entities conserving the status quo. Technologies that are disrupting existing power structures or decreasing the reach of old structures in power will most certainly see a heavy pushback through regulation and blacklisting. These projects can only push further if their codebase is protected on an immutable unstoppable ledger, which can be decentralized governed. Only through this technology, will we truly see a meaningful evolution and revolution of existing structures in the coding field.
But even projects with a less disrupting profile will find peace and utility when deploying their code on GitArch. Removal of multiple problems faced by developers around the globe, dependent on a single entity, should be one of the highest goals to guarantee a steady flow in developing new projects.
GitArch being based on Web3 will empower generations of developers through its tethered ownership tracking, and will create working fields that are completely differently funded compared to the status quo.
Empowerment, self-ownership, and utility are the foundation GitArch is built on and with which GitArch aims to push way ahead of other existing Git platforms.
