ditcraft/README.md

dit Client

The ditCraft client, simply called dit, is a decentralized git-client, empowering distributed and democratic governance for software projects.

Installation

The easiest way to use dit is to make use of the released pre-compiled binaries that are provided. Alternatively you can build the client yourself, as described here.

MacOS

• Download the latest dit-macos-amd64 from the release page
• Open your terminal (you will need it anyways) and go into the folder where you downloaded the ditCraft client
• Move it to /usr/local/bin by executing the following
  • mv dit-macos-* /usr/local/bin/dit
  • chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/dit
• Now you can use it by calling dit in your terminal

Linux

• Download the latest dit-linux-amd64 from the release page
• Open your terminal (you will need it for dit anyways) and go into the folder where you downloaded the dit client
• Move it to /usr/local/bin by executing the following
  • mv dit-linux-* /usr/local/bin/dit
  • chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/dit
• Now you can use it by calling dit in your terminal

Windows

Please note that the windows version hasn't been thoroughly tested, although it should work. We don't offer support for it at the moment, but will do so in the near future.

Build the client yourself

If you want to build the client yourself feel free to do so by following this guide. The only prerequisite that you need is go.

• Run go get github.com/ditcraft/client
• Enter the directory of the client with cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ditclient/client
• Install the necessary dependencies with go get -d ./...
• Build the client with go build -o dit main.go
• For Linux/MacOS: Move dit to /usr/bin and grant execution permissions
  • mv dit /usr/bin/dit && chmod a+x /ust/bin/dit

Please note: If you intend to make use of the demo mode described below, you need to insert four Ethereum addresses and their corresponding private keys with funds on the Rinkeby Ethereum testnet into the code before building it. One (the main one) in config.go (line 64/65) and three (the demo voters) in demo.go (lines 29-38). The precompiled binaries already contain pre-funded ones, so only need to worry about this when building it yourself.

Demo-Mode Usage

To test the dit client you can follow this guideline, showcasing you the features:

• Run dit setup --demo to start the setup of dit
  • The client will automatically use predefined privatekeys that can be used for the demo
• Go into a repository that you want to work with, to do so you can either:
  • dit clone <REPOSITORY_URL> to pull the repository onto your machine and automatically initialize it as a dit repository or
  • dit init in an exisiting repository to initialize it as a dit repository
• Now you can use dit in this repository, to get some help with the possible commands just type dit help
• Create or change a file in the repository where you want to test the dit client
• Run dit commit <COMMIT_MESSAGE>
  • dit will automatically commit these changes to a new branch and show you all the information necessary
• You can now let simulated demo voters vote on this proposal with dit demo_vote <PROPOSA_ID>
• When it's time to open the demo voters votes to the public, call dit demo_open <PROPOSAL_ID>
  • The timeframe to open your vote is displayed after calling dit commit or dit demo_vote
  • Note: For testing and developing purposes the timeframe to cast and open the vote is 3 minutes each. In reality this would last some days or a week.
• After you opened the demo voters votes, you need to wait until the opening phase is over to finalize the vote with dit finalize <PROPOSAL_ID>
  • Now you will see the outcome of the vote.
  • If the vote passed dit will automatically merge your commit into the master branch.
  • If the vote didn't pass dit will automatically remove your commit from the repository.
• Congratulations, you just participated in a decentralized version of git that is goverened through smart-contracts on the ethereum blockchain!