Digital Asset Goes Open Source as Firm Eyes Closer Ties With Hyperledger

Blockchain startup Digital Asset is open sourcing its Digital Asset Modelling Language, the beating heart of projects like the partial re-plumbing of the Australian Securities Exchange.

Announced Thursday, the move sees DA making DAML freely available - opening the door to its source code, its runtime system, and the software development kit, all under an Apache 2.0 license.

"We are very keen to work with the Hyperledger open source community. Being open source and under the Apache 2.0 license - the standard license of the Linux Foundation - will make it much easier to integrate with the frameworks that are within Hyperledger," said O'Prey.

Brian Behlendorf, the executive director of Hyperledger, echoed this sentiment, saying he welcomes the move to make DAML open source.

"We look forward to exploring how DAML can be integrated with the various Hyperledger blockchain frameworks and tools," he told CoinDesk.

A parallel can be drawn between DA's move today with DAML and R3's Corda, which began life in a closed proprietary platform only to later go open source, rapidly growing a Corda community of developers.

O'Prey acknowledged the success of Corda open source but pointed out that DAML is not directly competitive with Corda.

Regarding DA's move to open up DAML, an R3 spokesman was equally convivial: "This is the right move. DLT is well-suited to open source, as we have seen with other industry-leading platforms."

With DAML now out in the wild, so to speak, the firm is continuing to broaden its scope beyond capital markets into areas like healthcare, for instance.

"We fully support the decision to open source DAML, as it will help us gain adoption through improved security, licensing, and support," he said.