Haque Md Rafid, Islam Munna Sakibul, Ahmed Sabbir, Islam Md Tahmid, Hassan Onik Md Mehedi, Rahman A B M Ashikur
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Boardbazar, Gazipur, Bangladesh.
School of IT, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, Australia.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 3;20(9):e0331131. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0331131. eCollection 2025.
Centralized version control systems (VCS) are vital for software development but pose risks of data loss and ownership disputes. While blockchain offers a decentralized alternative, existing solutions are often hindered by high latency, compromising the real-time collaboration essential for modern workflows. This study introduces a novel hybrid architecture combining the security of the Ethereum blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) with two key contributions: 1) Shamir's Secret Sharing (SSS) to create a trust-minimized model for key distribution, and 2) an authoritative-first, optimistic-fallback retrieval protocol utilizing a temporary middleware to decouple the user experience from blockchain confirmation delays. We implemented a full prototype and conducted a comprehensive performance evaluation on the public Sepolia testnet. Our results demonstrate that this architecture not only provides a secure, auditable, and resilient platform for source code hosting but also achieves highly competitive user-perceived performance. Our user-perceived push time reduces submission latency by up to 49% compared to a standard git push for common repository sizes, proving that a well-designed decentralized VCS can balance the core tenets of security and decentralization with the practical need for speed and efficiency.
集中式版本控制系统（VCS）对软件开发至关重要，但存在数据丢失和所有权争议的风险。虽然区块链提供了一种去中心化的替代方案，但现有解决方案往往受到高延迟的阻碍，损害了现代工作流程中至关重要的实时协作。本研究引入了一种新颖的混合架构，将以太坊区块链和星际文件系统（IPFS）的安全性相结合，有两个关键贡献：1）使用 Shamir 秘密共享（SSS）创建一个信任最小化的密钥分发模型，以及 2）一种权威优先、乐观回退的检索协议，利用临时中间件将用户体验与区块链确认延迟解耦。我们实现了一个完整的原型，并在公共的 Sepolia 测试网上进行了全面的性能评估。我们的结果表明，这种架构不仅为源代码托管提供了一个安全、可审计且有弹性的平台，还实现了极具竞争力的用户感知性能。对于常见的仓库大小，与标准的 git 推送相比，我们的用户感知推送时间将提交延迟降低了高达 49%，证明精心设计的去中心化 VCS 可以在安全和去中心化的核心原则与速度和效率的实际需求之间取得平衡。
