Only binaries are provided?

Thanks for the invitation! I am very excited about playing a bit with Algorand’s testnet.

Unfortunately, I am a bit surprised that we are only given access to binaries. This is very unusual… specially for cryptocurrency and security conscious projects!
I would definitely would like to know and understand what is the code I am running.

When are you providing source code and build instructions for testnet participants?

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We will be open sourcing the code before we launch our MainNet.

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I felt the same way. Good to know that the source code will be open. :slight_smile:

Sorry, but a testnet with only binaries is so unconventional! Why did you decide to release this way??

Why did you decide to release this way?

I have been asking this question around in various places and no one from Algorand wants to answer it, the only official answer you will get is “don’t worry about it, we will do it eventually”. The reason I suspect is a commercial one. My understanding is that there is going to be some proprietary versoion of algorand that will be licensed for permissioned ledger tech at a later date. This view is based on some comments made by Silvio about the funding model of Algorand on youtube. The likely scenario in my mind is that the proprietary intellectual property (IP) is strongly tangled up with the non-proprietary and they’re having a hard time untangling it or deciding what they want to make public and what they want to keep private to protect IP.

Of course this is all conjecture and it would be nice if someone from Argorand could comment about this.

Open sourcing the protocol is a huge milestone for our company and one we’re very excited about. in order to put our best foot forward we’re making sure our ts are crossed and our i’s are dotted - nothing more complicated than that!