> Does the proposal discuss how the project could be undermined, identify its own deficiencies and limitation?

For the past twenty years, from SourceForge in 2001 to GitHub in 2023, the dominant actors providing centralized software forges developed undocumented specific formats to store the data they contain. The F3 effort to create an open standard is undermined when the dominant forge software makers do not participate. It is likely that they will keep refusing to participate in the next few years.

GitHub and GitLab strategy is to actively prevent and control communication between software forges and passively preventing a standardization effort like F3 is part of this strategy. Their primary goal is to facilitate user lock-in. Although the side effects of this strategy effectively threatens internet freedom globally, it is not a goal in itself for these organizations. It is therefore unlikely that they will actively work to undermine the F3 project.

There currently is a status quo: most Free Software development happens on a single software forge (GitHub). But there is no practical or theoretical limitation to replace GitHub with a multitude of software forges.

> Does the project identify potential unintended consequences?

If a group of developers work in autonomy and rely on a set of software projects stored as F3 archives, it significantly changes the threat model. For instance, instead of a network of online actors, linked via GitHub, providing real time tooling for the supply chain to build the software, F3 creates a situation where the entire supply chain could be run offline. Threat modeling for a particular use case may uncover new threats that have not yet been taken into account.

Once F3 is usable, feedback from actors facing security threats should be collected by participating in their security audit and analysing the reports. The recommendations related to F3 will then be incorporated into the specifications and the reference implementation. This feedback loop is how unintended consequences could be discovered and addressed.

> Does the proposal identify appropriate tactics for a potentially asymmetric position in relation to an adversary?

This would have to be considered in collaboration with an actor using F3 in a specific context. The F3 format and the reference implementation are not always used by an actor in an asymmetric position in relation to an adversary.

> Does it identify how an adversary might use the solution to further their own goals?

If F3 archives are made available on a public repository that does not provide cryptographic signature verification or does not require them, malicious content can be distributed. Similar to what happens on a daily basis on PyPI with name squatting, for instance.