IBM Donates Code Improvements to Open Source Hyperledger

The 110-year-old computing giant IBM (NYSE: IBM) said it has contributed significant code to the enterprise blockchain network Hyperledger, “one of the largest in its history.”

IBM announced Wednesday it has donated updates to the Hyperledger code and the underlying code for the IBM Blockchain Platform Console, an intuitive user interface that will form what is now the Fabric Operations Console.

The firm said it is also donating the code that supports token exchanges on Hyperledger Fabric and the Fabric Token SDK, as well as support for interoperability among different distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms.

Launched in 2015 by the Linux Foundation, Hyperledger is an umbrella project of open-source blockchains, which has received contributions from IBM, Intel, and SAP Ariba. By 2019 IBM had doubled the number of its employees on the technical steering committee of Hyperledger.

The IBM code contribution to Hyperledger Fabric is aimed at making the underlying software easier to use. IBM said that through the Fabric Operations Console, organizations will be able to access tools for managing governance.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Chris Ferris, CTO at IBM Open Tech, said this is a major contribution, “one of the largest in IBM history,” and the intent is to improve the usability of Hyperledger for all users.

“This means more developers in the Hyperledger community will be able to use it to build applications,” said Ferris.

He stressed that IBM is still 100% in the blockchain business despite recent reports the firm had slashed its blockchain team. 

IBM also announced any Hyperledger Fabric users will now have access to support services available in the Red Hat Marketplace, which will include access to IBM Certified Images, Code Security Scans, Break/Fix Level three Support and 24/7 customer support. 

In 2019, IBM acquired the open-source software giant Red Hat for $34 billion. Right after the deal closed the firms posted surprising revenue growth. 

“We are going to have a full support offering for Hyperledger Fabric. In the past, this was only available to IBM Blockchain Platform licensed users so this is different. Anyone can get support for the open-source offering through the Red Hat Marketplace,” said Ferris.

The Hyperledger Fabric support offering will be available in the fall through the Red Hat Marketplace and give the same level of Fabric support that previously was only available to IBM Blockchain Platform customers, said IBM.