# What is Proof of Contribution? (Overview)

Proof of Contribution is a novel consensus mechanism developed by ***tea*** that continually evaluates and scores every open-source software project across supported package managers based on its impact and value within the OSS ecosystem. ***tea***’s algorithm is inspired by Google PageRank and aims to accurately quantify the impact of each OSS project over time by modeling open-source software as a directed graph.

The Proof of Contribution algorithm achieves key goals for the ***tea*** Protocol:

* Quantifies the impact of an OSS project based on the project’s orientation within, and utilization by, the software ecosystem over time;
* Assigns each project a dynamic score—referred to as the project’s teaRank; and

The Proof of Contribution ranking algorithm is designed to benefit foundational software far removed from the application layer—software that tends to be the most critical but least visible to the public, attracting the least support. Proof of Contribution extends the reward mechanism to allow all OSS components of a software project to be rewarded for their contributions. Furthermore, open-source software is fraught with a unique set of spam challenges. Proof of Contribution [identifies and isolates spam software](/tea/i-want-to.../learn-about-proof-of-contribution/what-is-proof-of-contribution-technical.md#spam-resistance) to allow only impactful projects to receive fair rewards.

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