How it works
Panache Software is building an OpenSource LegalTech platform. Being OpenSource the code for the entire platform is available via GitHub.
GitHub provides us with version control so that the current version, along with all previous versions, of the code is always available. When making changes we use a "commit", this commit logs all the changes that are made along with who made the changes and what files have been altered. A commit could update a single word in a file, or could include substantial far ranging changes to the code.
When a new commit is created GitHub takes all the details of the change and from that information generates a unique SHA1 Hash which becomes the unique ID that can be used to lookup the details of that commit in the repository.
As an example, the first commit made to Panache Legal has the Id a1e62cafa675e21b7f44a1e920cfb32dffb4baf4 and you can click on that link to view the details of that commit.
We take that commit ID and run it through an algorithm, built with just a pinch of magic, that converts it from a long alpha numeric string into a Panache Pony. This algorithm is built so that it will always generate the same Panache Pony from the same commit ID.
What does this mean, well the number of combinations for an SHA1 hash is 1461501637330902918203684832716283019655932542976, that means that everytime we use a commit ID to generate a Panache Pony you can probably guarantee that it's a one of a kind, it might share some similarities to others, but it will be unique.
Also, although there are a huge amount of possible combinations, Panache Ponies are only generated from actual commits that take place on the main branch of the project, this means the number will always be limited. We don't just randomly generate them, they're created when work is done.
At the moment the number of commits is 133 which is the current number of Panche Ponies, although not all may be avaiable yet.
