Christian, 2026-10-29: 'Closed source software, you have no idea. And then all
we have is reputation. So you kind of start with one arm or two arms tied
behind your back.'
That is now arithmetic instead of an opinion.
- assessment.source_available: 1 = we can read the code, 0 = we cannot.
- Closed source cannot exceed 5 on ANY dimension without tier-1 or tier-2
evidence of kind 'capture' or 'filing'. Reputation is tier 3, and tier 3 is
not a measurement. The build fails if a closed-source score breaks the rule.
- Verifiability still caps at 3 with no reproducible build.
Practical ceiling for closed source: 86/100 in theory, if every dimension is
backed by a capture or a court filing. In practice it is a fight for a C.
- product.priority puts a human's ask ahead of a crawler's discovery.
- v_backlog orders by priority, then measured usage.
- migrate(): the database authors itself, so it must survive its own schema
changes. Add columns, drop views, let schema.sql recreate them. Never drop
and rebuild, which would destroy the self-authored roster.
On the board: Slack (closed, capped) and Kino (closed, capped, founders call
2026-10-30 17:00). Neither is scored. Neither gets a number until it has
evidence.
The roster writes itself. The scores do not.
- db/ingest/sources.mjs: GitHub and Flathub adapters. GitHub is ranked by
stars (usage); Flathub is a curated store of end-user Linux apps, so
relevance is free there and has to be earned on GitHub.
- db/ingest/run.mjs: discovers into the roster as unassessed products, never
as scores. Every discovery leaves a receipt (source, url, usage metric,
timestamp) so a reader can see where a product came from and why it ranks.
- LooksLikeUserSoftware gate: topic:messaging sorts RabbitMQ to the top
because brokers are highly starred and are not things people install.
- build.mjs no longer wipes the database. The DB authors itself, so a rebuild
would have thrown the roster away. --fresh is now explicit.
- v_backlog view: what to assess next, ordered by measured usage.
- packages/web/public/oath.html: the Ranch Oath, with an ASCII Bible crest,
bound to a SHA-256 of catalog.json. The page recomputes the digest in the
browser and reports VERIFIED or BROKEN. An oath you cannot break is decoration.
Roster now 122 products, 1 assessed. All instrument checks pass.
The database is the source of truth; the site is a view over it.
- packages/core/db/schema.sql: vendors, products, categories, the 8-dimension
instrument, assessments, scores, evidence, findings, off-ramp, plus the
derived v_product_score view the game reads.
- packages/core/db/build.mjs: rebuilds bigtech.db, absorbs the legacy 43-product
roster as unassessed, applies seeds, then verifies the instrument's own rules
(weights sum to 100, totals recompute, grades match bands, every score has a
rationale, no tier-4 evidence on a scored dimension, reproducible-build caps
actually enforced).
- packages/core/db/seed/0001-signal.sql: Signal Desktop 8.36.0-alpha.1 on linux,
75.9/100 grade B, weakest dimension local_data_exposure. Evidence points at
the re-runnable audit artifacts in the Servetus vault.
- packages/core/src/data/generated/catalog.{ts,json}: generated export.
Verified: 44 products, 1 assessed, all checks pass.
