Youngkyu Choi, Chief Architect, Medium
◇Open source blockchain project
On April 12, 2021, the Linux Foundation (LF) and the American Insurance Services Association (AAIS) announced a joint project called the Open Insurance Data Link platform (OpenIDL). This open source project includes major global insurance companies such as The Hanover and Selective Insurance Group, as well as a blockchain-based mobility standardization organization called Mobi (Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative), Chainyard. Technology and service providers such as a blockchain business solution company called KatRisk and a data modeling company called KatRisk also participated, creating a common DLT (distributed ledger technology) platform in an open source format for sharing data and business processes in the insurance industry I decided to develop it.
The contributions of open source software (OSS) in the development history of software cannot be listed, but the contribution of Linux, which is synonymous with OSS, is enormous. The unsurpassed popularity of OSS is even evident in the declaration that “MS loves Linux” in 2014 after Satia Nadella of Microsoft, who was the leader of anti-OSS, took office as CEO. Microsoft’s love for Linux accelerated with the acquisition of GitHub. The Linux Foundation is leading the global governance of the Linux Operating System and related important projects. This Linux Foundation is the place where Hyperledger, a blockchain technology developed and converted to OSS by IBM and others, has nested.
◇Open source, collective intelligence, and blockchain
Many blockchain projects are already in the form of OSS as they disclose their source code to GitHub, and DeFi is evolving widely in the form of open source finance, but if you look closely at it, faithfully consider open source governance, which has been well proven in the history of OSS. It doesn’t seem to be doing. In particular, intellectual property rights (IP) and licensing rules contained in open source are often poorly followed or overlooked.
In the last column, I saw that’Imitation and Link’ is a characteristic of Homo sapiens and is also a way of survival. Few places show this’imitation and connection’ as well as the open source software community. OSS is itself a globally connected’collective reality’. In this collective reality,’collective intelligence’ has emerged and developed. The behavior of community members in this collective reality is expressed through openness, participation in peer-to-peer production, sharing of information and methodology, and global action.
Due to its openness, standardization and open APIs have been made possible and further developed, which has contributed to rapid scientific and technological progress. Peering, in which participation is a virtue, has formed a more horizontal structure in terms of ability, facilitated peer review and transparency, resulting in a reduction in complexity and minimization of redundancy.
Sharing has created a climate that makes users and customers not just consumers, but partners and contributors or producers. The globalized behavioral consciousness emerged from the awareness that since most open source community activities appear on the Internet, their activities are naturally connected to the world, and their impact or influence can be instant and powerful.
These open source activities have contributed to improving the quality of products and services and increasing productivity through open cooperation. Open source activities made the impossible possible (Enabler), secured better security through transparency (Security), and in many cases became the innovator of innovation, and the catalyst for convergence and creation was It also contributed to the formation of a culture of participation, sharing, openness, group learning, and cooperation. The author, who has been involved in open source activities in the United States and Korea for half a lifetime, has seen and experienced numerous examples above, but due to paper reasons, examples are omitted here. However, I have a dream to see these success stories in many current global tasks based on blockchain.
◇Hybrid governance and cooperative decentralization
The wall clock called governance in reality revolves around the pendulum as it moves between’centralized’ and’decentralized’. Centralization and decentralization are not exclusive, and neither is better than the other. In most cases, each individual inside the decentralized object must be centralized, and many autonomous and decentralized objects can be included inside the centralized one.
Likewise, there are issues of hierarchy and granularity in governance, and in essence, there is a hybrid character. Rather, it seems that hybrid governance overcomes the risk of uniformity that can occur in centralization and the danger of confusion and inefficiency that can occur in decentralization, thereby achieving a better harmony of diversity and order. Fundamentalist decentralized idealism does not seem to fit well with the reality we live in and the metaverse in which this is expanded reality. If hybrid governance is applied to blockchain tasks, it means that consortium blockchains equipped with an interchain (IBC) layer compatible with public blockchains may be more suitable for realistic business solutions.
In another place, I referred to the appearance of the blockchain ecosystem to which such hybrid governance was applied as’Collaborative Decentralization’, which will be discussed in more detail in a later column.
Illiteracy in the 21st century
On the 27th of next month, it will be five years since Alvin Toffler, the master of futurism of this era, died at the age of 87 at his home in Los Angeles. (June 27, 2016)
“The illiteracy of the 21st century will not be someone who cannot read and write, but someone who is not capable of learning, unlearning and relearning what has been learned.” (The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.)
What is even more frightening is that this era seems to have lost reflection and discernment in shaping technological advances and inclusive cultures. This is why wise men and adults who have experienced many failures in their lives should come into this trend without being afraid of this rapidly changing era.
In what kind of world will our descendants live?
