{"id":4047,"date":"2017-08-24T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/brian-behlendorf-interview_082417\/"},"modified":"2021-12-03T06:05:19","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T06:05:19","slug":"brian-behlendorf-interview_082417","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/brian-behlendorf-interview_082417\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyping the hyperledger with blockchain boffin Brian Behlendorf"},"content":{"rendered":"
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HfS’ Saurabh Gupta<\/a> recently caught up with Brian Behlendorf (see bio<\/a>), the Executive Director of Hyperledger at the Linux Foundation. Brian was a primary developer of the Apache Web Server – the most popular web server on the internet. He was a founding member of the Apache Software Foundation, the founding CTO of CollabNet, the CTO of the World Economic Forum, and the managing director at Mithril Capital Management LLC before heading Hyperledger. He is also a board member of the Mozilla Foundation since 2003 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n Two decades after developing the Apache HTTP server that played a key role in giving us the internet and the web, Brian is reimagining our world again with blockchain. We discussed a range of topics around the reality and practicality of blockchain for enterprises along with the one wish that he wants to come true. <\/p>\n Saurabh Gupta, Chief Strategy Officer, HfS Research:<\/strong><\/span> Brian, one of the stated goals for Hyperledger is to create enterprise grade frameworks and solutions. Why do you think enterprises should adopt blockchain?<\/p>\n Brian Behlendorf, the Executive Director of Hyperledger at the Linux Foundation:<\/strong><\/span> We have lots of transaction networks that, Saurabh, because of historical network choices, have resulted in many central actors who facilitate digital transactions like a hub in a hub-and-spoke network. And we have to proxy our trust to them – sometimes they do a noble job and charge a nominal rate, but there are times when these central actors charge unreasonable double-digit rates. Blockchain allows business models to become more equitable and agile by behaving more like the internet.<\/p>\n The cryptocurrency community has produced a lot of interesting technological advancements, and there are valid and worthy uses for them, but the majority of the enterprise market is looking for a consortium approach – one that still sees a representative organization to set the rules of a market, but where the market operates more directly peer-to-peer and distributed, rather than all transactions going through that central party. These consortia can upgrade the rules from time to time with the consent of the market, , and help define and enforce a set of legally binding agreements to cover situations that the technology does not cover. <\/p>\n As an example, an organization like SWIFT can reinvent their current offerings as distributed ledgers, to not only optimize the product (reduce turnaround time from 3 days to 5 mins) but also make them more accountable to their member backs. Essentially, they become referees on a football field, instead of the quarterback.<\/p>\n It’s not just financial markets; we can re-invent claims processing with distributed ledgers and smart contracts to make it is less bureaucratic. We can share patient records with strong audit and access control. There are use cases across healthcare, supply chain provenance, and many industries. These may sound like disparate use cases, but it’s similar to how TCP\/IP transformed the world in the 1990s….who thought that an online bookstore would become the most valuable company 20 years later, but it did.<\/p>\n Saurabh:<\/strong><\/span> Why should enterprises look at Hyperledger? There are so many different permissioned and permissionless frameworks out there, so what is the elevator pitch?<\/p>\n Brian:<\/strong><\/span> As new technology develops, there is a call for standards. Participants want to focus on time and effort and investment to build solutions versus worrying about the framework. This is the rationale for open standards. There has been a linear progression from open standards to open source software. While financial firms are behind the curve, if they want to get behind this idea you need everyone else to adopt it…and that requires open source.<\/p>\n That is why we are pulling together the most exciting portfolio with a multi-lateral developer and vendor community. As a result, clients don’t just have to go to IBM; they can reach out to Accenture or Wipro or frankly hundreds of other startups and still get the same basic technical architecture. It’s similar to the benefits that Linux brought to the world of operating systems.<\/p>\n