As a permissionless and decentralized blockchain, trust, transparency, and individual agency are central to Cardano’s mission and community-centric future. These principles support open-source practices and values, which have greatly contributed to Cardano’s ongoing development for years and will keep driving Cardano forward as the protocol advances.

Vital to Cardano’s open-source maturity and overall growth is the maintenance of the core code repos by the community, for the community. To help enable this, the stewardship of core Cardano repositories is being passed from Input Output Global (IOG) to Intersect – the member-based organization tasked with maintaining Cardano’s infrastructure and sustaining its expansion. As the future stewards of Cardano’s ongoing open-source development, this repo migration will provide a new independent home for the core code base and enable Intersect to support those members who maintain the repositories.

Since its establishment, IOG and a dozen other organizations have contributed to the code in the repos, reflecting Cardano’s commitment to community building and open-source innovation from the get-go. IOG launched an open-source workstream last October to oversee repository migrations as a means to empower the community with full access and control over foundational Cardano codebase.

Since then, Intersect has conducted thorough research and preparations, resulting in a comprehensive migration plan that entails the below key target areas:

• Identifying repository owners
• Setting up the target registry
• Exporting or cloning each source repository to allow archiving
• Transferring each source repository
• Archiving the clone or export of each source repository
• Testing and verification (builds, CI, permissions, etc.)
• Documentation and communication
• Collaborator and access management

The migration of Cardano’s codebases will leverage the existing support from IOG, Intersect’s Open Source Committee, and other current maintainers and teams behind the repositories until service agreements are agreed next year.

Open Source

The repository migration is scheduled for December 16, 2023, with the goal of transferring all 25 repositories with minimal impact on ongoing developer activity and initiatives. Intersect’s Open Source Committee and the Open Source Program Office will oversee and manage all repository list needs and the successful migration of all repositories to Intersect as part of the Open Source Strategy.

Member of the Open Source Committee and Technical Architect at IOG, Michael Peyton Jones said;

“The top priority of the OSC right now is making sure the transition of the Cardano repositories is smooth and that development is undisrupted. Going forward, we’re looking at ways to make the process of contributing to Cardano easier, clearer, and more transparent.”

Pat Sheridan, Chair of the Open Source Committee and CEO of Modus Create adds:

“I'm proud of the work the OSC and its first set of technical working groups was able to achieve this year, and most importantly that we were able to accomplish that work consistent with open source ideals. A strong foundation is set for broader community engagement in the coming year.”

This milestone marks new developmental capabilities that will propel Cardano into the future. As the network advances in the age of Voltaire, the community will continue to take on ever-greater ownership over all aspects of the protocol, which has been the goal for Cardano from the start.

The OSC has recently released a survey for members of Intersect and the wider Cardano community to provide feedback and thoughts on Cardano’s open source approach. Contribute here.

For more information and to stay abreast of the latest developments with Cardano’s open-source approach, join Intersect and follow Intersect’s Open Source Program Office (OSPO) at #osc-feedback on Discord.