What Programmers Think of Libra Source Code - More Skeptical Than Positive on GitHub

It's been two weeks since Facebook released its whitepaper on the cryptocurrency Libra, and as an open source project, Libra's source code has been posted on Github, a well-known open source community and code hosting repository. Although the code hasn't been out for long, it has attracted a lot of attention from crypto community commentators and programmers, given the influence of social networking giant Facebook.

The Libra cryptocurrency is currently governed by the Libra Consortium, an independent organization run as a spin-off from Facebook. To date, the Libra project on Github has been "saved" or "starred" by nearly 10,000 users, representing a high level of interest from early open source participants. In addition, more than 1,000 Libra code clones have been created on Github so far, allowing programmers and "programmers-to-be" to sit down and scrutinize Libra's code.

In fact, some programmers who have worked with Libra's code have found that it "borrows" features from other cryptocurrency systems (such as Bitcoin), such as opening up network access to block verifiers. More importantly, programmers have found in Libra's source code that the cryptocurrency project is not as "serious" as one might think.

Mikko Ohtamaa, who has created a clone of the so-called "Libra Classic", suggests that the Libra source code posted by Facebook on Github may have been just "bait" to see how the community would react. to see how the community would react.

Albert Castellana, Chief Product Officer at cryptocurrency startup Radix DLT, commented:

"So far, programmers haven't filed real code defects against the Libra project on Github, and the main issues they're finding right now are either related to code builds or some code spelling errors. And, of course, there are critics who point out that Libra is not a decentralized solution."

In order to support the newest global financial payment system, the Libra cryptocurrency will be issued with a team of 28 founding members responsible for validating transactions and adding new blocks - at least initially. Of course, Facebook has also expressed hope that the Libra network will become more "decentralized" over time as it expands.

However, the crypto community isn't buying this rhetoric from Facebook.

In contrast, the original Bitcoin network was also designed as a global financial payment system, but enabled any individual with the computational resources to participate in creating and broadcasting transaction blocks and to earn block rewards, or bitcoins, in the process.

Because of this, a number of opinion leaders in the cryptocurrency industry have directly criticized the Libra blockchain's licensing structure, digging deep into every detail of Libra's code on Github, in addition to social media.

The programmer community is "digging deep" into the Facebook Libra open source code.

On GitHub, any user with read access to a code repository can create an issue and pull request it. (Planet o-daily note: a pull request is a request for someone to pull their own code repository. programmers who find a problem with a piece of code can git clone the original repository on their own machine, switch the fork ( fork), and make some changes to the code. After the completion of the Compare & pull request can be launched, add some comments to confirm the submission, if the original library author to see your updates and confirm that there is no error, you will integrate your code into their own projects, if the original library author believes that your updates are problematic, you can refuse to update the code.)

Over the past four days, the Libra codebase has flagged approximately 160 issues, of which more than 100 have been closed by authenticated codebase users, some of which have been flagged as "off-topic". While only half of these issues are pull requests, they reinforce a widespread sentiment in the cryptocurrency community that Facebook Libra's authorized blockchain protocol is inherently flawed.

Github user "gazhayes" made a pull request on Tuesday, June 25, explaining:

"I found an alarming vulnerability, but fortunately there is a very simple solution ...... which can be easily solved by using an authorization-free system where power is spread over a large number of participants. "

However, the pull request by "gazhayes" was closed by the Libra GitHub administrators on Wednesday, June 26th, resulting in complaints and dissatisfaction from members of the programmer community, who believed that the pull request submitted by "gazhayes" was a legitimate comment. gazhayes" was a legitimate comment.

Marcus Newton, a decentralized application developer, commented:

"The fact that pull request #83 by gazhayes has indeed been locked suggests that the Libra source code administrators are not open to programmers with different perspectives and experience."

In response to the programmer community's "protests," Ben Maurer, head of technology at Calibra, the company building the wallet application for the Libra blockchain, explained:

"We realize that Libra is a transformative endeavor, and that it also requires a community around it and in support of it. But some of the rhetoric needs all the moderation it can get, because an off-topic conversation is certainly no better than a productive one. Pull request #83 has no substance and takes away from review resources."

Problems remain

"Mikko Ohtamaa, founder of the Libra Classic project, seemed to agree with Ben Maurer, but also pointed out that it remains to be seen whether GitHub's open-source collaboration on the Libra project will be effective or not, he said:

"People just hate Facebook, so they pick on the GitHub code repository, and all the problems right now aren't objective discussions of the issues, they're just some programmers expressing their hate for Facebook. "

However, Mikko Ohtamaa believes that with time and further standardization of the code, more programmers will be able to fully understand how the Libra network works, and Facebook-hatred will be somewhat alleviated, he added:

"From now on, all Libra development work is open and transparent and will be done in public.The Libra source code on Github is basically sort of a code dump, but now Facebook ...... wants everyone else to understand that they have a great reputation for open source projects have a great reputation as well."

But even so, it seems that there are still some unresolved issues that could affect Facebook's ambitious cryptocurrency project as well, if we look at it from multiple perspectives. Jameson Lopp, CTO of crypto-security startup Casa, said that there is still a lot of information that has not been made public about the Libra development language Move, he further explained:

"One big question here is whether you can also run nodes that download all ledger states and check them if you are not a verifier. Another question is whether Libra's so-called replica node mode of operation will also be able to download blocks created by the verifier."

In response to questions about the next steps in the Libra open source program, Alexandru Voica, Facebook's communications manager, said:

"One of the specifics we can share right now is this - Facebook plans to add a brand new command line interface to the Move language so developers can more easily use the Move language in their own development environments."

Aron van Ammers, CTO and co-founder of Outlier Ventures, believes that Facebook's cryptocurrency program is still in its early stages and it may be months before people see something enlightening from it. Aron van Ammers concludes:

"It's a little early to comment on Libra, no one has looked at, or analyzed, Libra, Calibra, and the Facebook team from an outside perspective before, but it does take time to launch a project of this magnitude."