Hello, I was curious to explore what insights can be gained about Bitcoin's dev history from Github data. While there's a lot to uncover, in the fist iteration, i have looked at.
1: How many have contributed to Bitcoin core? Who are the contributors?
2: Can their contribution be quantified? Not all commits are equal, but nevertheless it is a decent starting point.
3: Can GitHub data, such as commits, contributors, stars, and more, provide additional context and insights into Bitcoin's history? (WIP)
Here is high level summary:
1: Less than ~400 dev contributors so far
2: the first five to do the commit on the github repo:
| Login | Name | First Contribution | Contributions |
|---|---|---|---|
| non-github-bitcoin | Non-Github User Bitcoin Commits | 2009-08-30 03:46:39+00:00 | 271 |
| gavinandresen | Gavin Andresen | 2010-07-14 15:54:31+00:00 | 1120 |
| dooglus | Chris Moore | 2011-01-21 10:37:34+00:00 | 31 |
| luke-jr | Luke Dashjr | 2011-01-28 19:39:31+00:00 | 526 |
| mgiuca | Matt Giuca | 2011-02-25 21:45:38+00:00 | 6 |
3: Top 5 contributors by # of contributions
| Login | Name | First Contribution | Contributions |
|---|---|---|---|
| laanwj | None | 2011-05-07 20:13:39+00:00 | 7370 |
| Anonymous | merge-script, MacroFake, MarcoFalke, Marco | NaT | 6272 |
| fanquake | fanquake | 2012-02-28 12:31:56+00:00 | 3904 |
| sipa | Pieter Wuille | 2011-03-17 21:51:59+00:00 | 2195 |
| achow101 | Ava Chow | 2016-01-23 13:58:17+00:00 | 1604 |
Here is a chart that has data on all the contributors. Pls have a look at the interactive version at. https://sorukumar.github.io/plebdashboard/v0%3A%20for%20feedback/Aug042024_Bitcoin_Contributors.html
The tooltip contains info about each developer and their contributions.
Here's how to read the chart:
1: The x-axis represents the year each developer made their first contribution to Bitcoin Core. For example, Peter Wuille's first contribution was in 2011, so he's part of the "Class of 2011". The y-axis shows the number of contributions as of last week.
2: The size of the bubble is correlated with # of contribution. So, larger bubbles indicate top contributors. The tooltip also displays the percentage of their contributions compared to the total number of commits to Bitcoin Core
3: The color of each bubble represents the year of the developer's last contribution. This helps identify who is currently active.
4: All anonymous contributors are grouped under the "Class of 2009". Upon examining the data, I found that many of these individuals are non-anonymous developers making commits anonymously. I even spotted a few high-profile names from big tech companies.
5: The dark blue is Satoshi. https://github.com/non-github-bitcoin?tab=overview&from=2017-12-01&to=2017-12-31
6: you may notice that the GitHub data appears to show a lower number of contributors. According to the GitHub API, the numbers are as follows:
| Repository | Commits | Contributors | Forks | Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bitcoin/bitcoin | 42041 | 1200 | 35988 | 77846 |
However, out of 1200 only ~350 are identifiable. Looking at the data, I am sure majority of these anonymous folks are 350 dev making commit anonymously. Only 1k commits are out of these anonymous folks, except the dark blue bubble representing Satoshi. Remember v0.1.5 onward is available on the github. https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/code/
I ended up doing hours of work to manage data quality issues ( account type: user/anonymous), so let me know if i missed anything obvious.
Also, let me know if you would like to get anything added into the analysis/data.