Hiero

Open Source Distributed Ledger Technology

What is Hiero?

Hiero, a Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust project, is an open-source, vendor-neutral distributed ledger technology. Hiero is used to build the Hedera public ledger.

Hiero is fair

Everybody should have equal access to all public forums. No one should have the ability to re-prioritize your transactions, or drop them, or front-run, or sandwich trade, or otherwise disadvantage you. The hashgraph algorithm is leaderless. We all deserve a more fair world.

Hiero is fast

You shouldn't have to sacrifice performance for fairness or security. The world of interconnected businesses and networks continues to expand at an accelerating rate. Waiting minutes for transactions to finalize doesn't meet your requirements. The hashgraph algorithm isn't just fair, it is also fast.

Hiero is secure

The hashgraph algorithm is asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (ABFT). This is the gold standard in distributed network security. Your transactions are protected from bad actors with the highest security available.

Hiero is decentralized

No one entity should have complete control of your future. Spreading power and influence out among many participants, all with equal access, helps secure your access to the network and your data. You should be able to participate in the network, in its development, and in its use. This network belongs to the world. It belongs to the future.

Hiero is leaderless

A ledger with a leader-based consensus protocol is inherently unfair, and either slow or susceptible to denial of service attacks. We believe in a future where every node can participate on an equal basis with a completely leaderless consensus protocol, safe from denial-of- service, and safe from centralization.

Hiero is open

Hiero is a vibrant community of developers, visionaries, and innovators dedicated to creating a more fair, efficient, and secure world. As part of the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust initiative, we are pioneering a new era of open governance and collaboration for the project.

Why is Hiero Open Source?

The main goal of Hiero is to create a diverse community of developers, dreamers, and builders working to make the world more fair, fast, and secure. To achieve that goal it is critical that everyone can access the source of Hiero and move the project forward. A decentralized network that is used by enterprises and critical infrastructure around the world must be vendor-neutral and fully auditable.

What parts of Hiero are Open Source?

Hiero is 100% open-source. While the transition of the project to Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust is still ongoing, a view into some additional contributions can be found in Hedera’s GitHub organization. As a first step, the technical steering committee (TSC) of Hiero will provide oversight to include projects that are needed to run an enterprise-ready decentralized network to a new Hiero GitHub organization. More information about the transition process can be found in the roadmap.

“As a long-time contributor to the Hyperledger project—now LF Decentralized Trust—and as a Hedera Council Member, we are thrilled to see Hedera's codebase integrated into the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust. This milestone represents a powerful synergy: Hedera will benefit from the Linux Foundation's unparalleled experience in open, collaborative governance, while LFDT gains a significant DLT project backed by a vibrant developer ecosystem.”

Shyam Nagarajan Global Practice Leader, Executive Partner, Responsible AI, IBM Consulting

“Hedera’s participation in Linux Foundation’s Decentralized Trust will undoubtedly accelerate development, enhance security, and foster unprecedented collaboration within the Hedera ecosystem, positioning it at the forefront of blockchain innovation. As the leading wallet on the network, HashPack is committed to playing an active role in this new open source structure, and we look forward to contributing our expertise to help shape the future of Hedera and the broader decentralized technology landscape.”

May Chan, CEO, HashPack

“By contributing its codebase to the Linux Foundation's Decentralized Trust, Hedera is demonstrating the ultimate commitment to open development. As a leading data infrastructure provider in the ecosystem, Hgraph is actively dedicated to supporting the Hiero project as it transforms the open source DLT space and empowers the Hedera developer community.”

Tyler McDonald, CEO, Hgraph

“The HBAR Foundry community is excited to see the contribution of the Hedera software to the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust project. We're delighted to see Hedera's commitment to growing an independently governed and transparent community with more resources and opportunities to engage and grow the ecosystem.”

The HBAR Foundry, A Community Of Expert Hedera Builders

“Hedera’s contribution of its codebase to the Linux Foundation’s Decentralized Trust initiative is great news for SentX.io. By open-sourcing the Hashgraph technology, Hedera is reinforcing its commitment to innovation and decentralization. We expect this move to boost developer engagement, speed up the adoption of decentralized applications, and attract more retail users, driving growth across the ecosystem.”

Sam Jimenez & Patrícia Carapinha, Founders, SentX.io

“Transferring ownership of Hedera's codebase to the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust project is a testament to the power of open collaboration and meritocracy. This landmark initiative will empower developers, entrepreneurs, and enterprises to actively participate in shaping the future of Hedera. We are thrilled to be part of this vibrant ecosystem and look forward to contributing to its growth and success.”

Ivan Saiz, CTO, ioBuilders

“Hedera’s contribution of its codebase to the Linux Foundation’s Decentralized Trust entirely reshapes decentralized governance. At Calaxy, we view this as more than an infrastructure change – it’s a move that drives real-world innovation. Developers now have greater autonomy and access to tools to build more inclusive, user-driven applications. We’re excited to see how this enables devs to push the boundaries of creator-focused economies and further integrate blockchain into our everyday social experiences and relationships.”

Solo Ceesay, CEO & Co-founder, Calaxy

“Hedera's decision to open-source its codebase under the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust is a monumental leap forward for the entire blockchain industry. This bold move not only underscores Hedera's commitment to decentralization and transparency but also paves the way for unprecedented community-driven innovation. We are excited to collaborate with the growing ecosystem to build a future where the possibilities are limitless.”

Rajiv Sohal, CTO, Diamond Standard

“This contribution represents a historic moment in the evolution of decentralized networks and is setting a precedent for transparency and collaboration in the blockchain industry. By contributing our codebase to LF Decentralized Trust, as project Hiero, we are reaffirming our commitment to open governance and collaboration. LF Decentralized Trust's mission to advance decentralized systems aligns perfectly with our own goals. We look forward to providing developers with unmatched access to tools and resources, creating an environment where decentralized applications can truly thrive.”

Charles Adkins, President, Hedera

“By contributing Hiero to the Linux Foundation, an organization with a long history of supporting open source and open innovation, Hedera demonstrates to Council Members, ecosystem partners, grantees, and the builder community that it is committed to growing the capabilities of its network through transparency and meritocracy.”

Dr. Leemon Baird, Inventor, Co-founder, & Chief Scientist, Hashgraph

How to Contribute / Getting Started?

Since we are still working on the transition of the Hiero repositories from the Hedera GitHub organization into the Hiero GitHub organization, many opportunities for contribution can be initiated at the Hedera’s GitHub organization today.

While in this transition phase we already want to enable developers to join in developing Hiero and its related projects. As such, we’re always willing to help you get started and mentor you on your journey of learning the project and making useful contributions.

There is good work to do for everyone with whatever skillset you have - and it doesn’t have to be code. We also welcome help with documentation, design, project organization, and organizing meetups. For instance, at Hacktoberfest we have a huge list of good first issues that let the community do the first contributions, several of which will help us remove Hedera naming and usage from the code and truly make it vendor neutral.

If you have any questions or need help or additional mentoring, then you can reach out to the community and the technical steering committee (TSC) of Hiero in our GitHub discussions.

Connect with the Hiero Open Source community

Since we did not create Hiero from scratch, it already has a vibrant community from Hedera and other products and projects. With the creation of the Hiero project, we started GitHub discussions that can be used as a central place to contact the community and the technical steering committee (TSC) of Hiero.

For us, the community of the open-source project is a crucial part of its success. Based on that we will concentrate on the integration of the community. As defined in the roadmap, we will integrate the community into the development of Hiero from day 1. An essential part of that is to have community members be part of the TSC. Here the TSC is working on voting mechanisms that allow us to create a diverse community.

Next to the TSC, we want to invest in a diverse and inclusive community. It is important to us that everyone, regardless of knowledge and background, can become an active contributor to Hiero. To enable that, we plan to hire at least one community manager in the near future and provide open documentation and teaching resources.

The Technical Steering Committee of Hiero

While one of our main goals is to have a diverse and inclusive community in which everybody has the rights and responsibilities to move the project forward, it is important that a committee oversees the project and moves the roadmap forward. To do so, we have defined a technical steering committee (TSC) that is defined by six individuals today. One of the important next steps on our roadmap is to enable voting mechanisms to add additional members from the community to the TSC. The duties, goals, and rights of the TSC are defined in the technical charter of the Hiero project.

Richard Bair

Dr. Leemon Baird

Hendrik Ebbers

Stoyan Panayotov

Alex Popowycz

George Spasov

Our Roadmap in the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust

With the creation of the project in the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LFDT) and the establishment of the initial technical steering committee (TSC) the cornerstones of Hiero have been laid. As a next essential step the TSC needs to provide a roadmap that covers the transition of the first repositories and projects to the Hiero GitHub organization and the inclusion and enabling of the community. The members of the TSC have committed themselves to work on the creation of this roadmap with the highest priority. The TSC hopes and encourages input and feedback by the complete ecosystem from core developers to users. To do so we enabled GitHub discussions as a first open way for communication. We hope that as many community members as possible contribute to the discussions regarding the initial roadmap and help us to create a real community driven project.

While an official roadmap does not exist today, the TSC has already defined several points they believe are essential for Hiero’s success. The following provide insight into those areas.

Transparent voting mechanisms for the community

Together with the Linux Foundation, the Hiero TSC seeks to establish voting mechanisms that can be used in electing new committee members. Such transparency is instrumental in developing trust by integrating the community in all aspects of the project's governance and operations.

Transition of SDKs

The next phase of code contributions involve those that allow developed applications to take advantage of the myriad of a network’s services. Here the SDK clients are essential parts and should be migrated to Hiero directly after or parallel with the network repositories.

Transition of network repositories

Hedera has existed since 2017, which has allowed its developer ecosystem to grow as represented by the variety of projects within its repository. With the number of projects involved, the initial priorities are to transition the repositories needed to run a fully functioning base network (including Consensus Node, Mirror Node, JSON-RPC-Relay, and others) as soon as possible.

Renaming and rebranding

Repositories in the Hedera GitHub organization use “Hedera” or “Hashgraph” as names of the project reflecting the initial motivations for its use, reflected in the repository and project names but also in the sources. With the transition of sources to Hiero we plan to refactor all those projects and use Hiero as core element in naming conventions.

Enabling better communication with the community

A critical focus will be enhancing communication channels with the community to ensure transparency and inclusivity. In addition to GitHub Discussions, we are exploring the establishment of additional forums, such as Discord channels, to foster real-time interaction. Regular community calls and office hours will be implemented to keep the project on track and keep everyone updated on key milestones and developments.

Better support regarding contributions especially for newcomers

We recognize the importance of nurturing contributors at all levels, especially those who are new to the project. To this end, we will develop clear contributor guidelines, easy-to-follow documentation, and a mentorship program. These efforts aim to lower the barrier to entry, making it easier for newcomers to onboard and actively contribute to the growth of Hiero.