Aligning open source projects with common objectives: Meet LF Digital Trust

Open source projects are increasingly vital in advancing digital asset ecosystems. But discovering them and avoiding duplication of effort and resources can sometimes be challenging. To improve project discovery and encourage greater collaboration on open source projects with common goals, the LF has launched two new initiatives, LF Digital Trust and LF Sustainability. 

This article introduces LF Digital Trust – in a separate piece, we’ll discuss the Sustainability initiative.

LF Digital Trust: Powering a secure digital economy

Digital trust is the cornerstone of today's Internet-driven economy. From everything relating to asset storage or issuance, cryptocurrency, credentials, keys, tokens, or our identities, digital trust is essential for accelerating digital asset ecosystems. 

Open source project communities, including many at the LF, play a critical role in maintaining the integrity of the decentralized world. Now is the time to identify them in their respective efforts. The LF Digital Trust initiative is a hub established to support the discovery of the critical open source projects hosted by the Linux Foundation that each, in unique ways, is making advancements in this area. It’s where open source and decentralized communities converge under the banner of trust.

Projects included in LF Digital Trust are a combination of technology-specific horizontals and industry-specific project verticals. Each brings a unique value proposition and presents the community with solving the challenge of greater cross-project collaboration over time and the lofty goal of interoperability. 

Achieving greater digital asset interoperability across project communities and technologies is crucial, not just within LF-hosted projects but broadly speaking. And the fastest route to achieving it, we believe, is through enhanced collaboration in open source and streamlined project discovery. LF Digital Trust is a small but critical step to improve how the individual pieces of the digital asset interoperability puzzle can fit together more effectively. 

Many projects included in LF Digital Trust, including the OpenWallet Foundation and Open Metaverse Foundation, were established only a few months ago. While they may be new to the Linux Foundation, their formation is a testament to the growth of these emerging spaces, and the critical role that open source plays in building innovative infrastructure to sustain the decentralized world.

Communities within the Linux Foundation advancing Digital Trust

Several projects and communities within the Linux Foundation are contributing significantly towards solving digital trust issues:

• The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is developing technical standards to document the source and history (provenance) of digital assets, addressing the issue of misleading information online.
• Confidential Computing Consortium is protecting data in use by executing computation in a hardware-based, attested Trusted Execution Environment, thus increasing security assurances for organizations managing sensitive and regulated data.
• Decentralized Identity Foundation advances decentralized identity by creating open, foundational elements, including specifications and reference implementations.
• Hyperledger Foundation fosters the open development of enterprise-grade distributed ledgers and digital identity technologies that lay the foundation for decentralized networks, transactions, and trust.
• Open Metaverse Foundation is developing open source software and standards for a global, vendor-neutral, and scalable Metaverse, enabling dynamic, immersive experiences between and inside the digital and real worlds.
• OpenWallet Foundation is creating open source components for interoperable wallets, bringing together different communities.
• Trust Over IP Foundation provides a robust, common set of standards and complete architecture for internet-scale digital trust.

Several industry-focused projects within the Linux Foundation are part of this initiative as they are at the forefront of deploying digital trust architecture and hosting numerous projects that further develop and support trusted open source technologies even further.:

• AgStack Foundation enables the consensus and implementation of trusted, vendor-neutral, and secure identity information for the global food and agriculture industry's human, machine, animal, and geographic assets.
• FINOS enables the successful implementation and broad acceptance of trusted Web3 technologies within the finance industry, supporting open source collaboration to bring these technologies to fruition.

These communities and projects are taking massive strides toward a more secure, interoperable, and innovative digital world. By collaborating with open source, they are solving complex issues related to digital trust and setting new standards for the future. Consider joining or contributing to these initiatives to support the mission of LF Digital Trust and enhance the digital trust ecosystem globally.

Designed for use by people, governments, enterprises, non-profits, academic institutions, and society at large, LF Digital Trust projects introduce the open source communities that play unique roles in the digital asset ecosystem. It is a conduit to governance frameworks, leadership teams, and technical oversight committees and, importantly, offers avenues for everyone to get involved and support project sustainability. Discover LF Digital Trust projects today!