Hi @bjoern , this is a new area of inquiry for me, so I appreciate your answer to @Zane. I guess a simpler way of putting it would be: if Dfinity vanished in a puff of smoke tomorrow, and all its private repos were abruptly wiped is it the case that:
a) some part/s of the IC would break
b) nothing would break
c) Maintaining and developing it over the next year would hit walls from not having access to Dfinity’s private repos
d) The private repos would not be missed
If it’s b+d, then yes, the IC is open source, and we benefit from, but don’t depend on Dfinity’s private code.
If it’s a, c or b+c, then the IC is not fully open source, and the system is beholden to Definity’s internal governance, probity, solvency, and fiat. Which would make Dfinity’s transparency an issue outside Dfinity.
Nore subtly, as @justmythoughts pointed out, the ic api code that powers the dashboard is not open source:
Now, the API is by definition not the source code, but it points to a different kind of dependency: keeping the api private, again, puts the community in a highly vulnerable position of faith. Is the data we are looking at in the Dashboard a faithful reflection to what’s actually going on in IC?
Do we have any ways of querying the data layer as developers and building our own API? If not, then again, the IC as currently constituted, lives at the mercy of what Dfinity chooses to share or not to share, and the issue of accountability and transparency, when that info is ALL the difference to investor and developer decisions, becomes significant.
Genuinely open minded here, even if I am getting a pretty consistent picture emerge every single time I dive into a new area of the question. I’d LOVE to hear that the open source code is enough to run, clone and implement the IC and that the data on its current constituents is not behind an api wall only Dfinity has the means to build or extend.