Dr. Leemon Baird (@LeemonBaird) is the inventor of the hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm and co-founder of @hedera. He held a position as Professor of Computer Science at the US Air F
Dr. Leemon Baird (@LeemonBaird) is the inventor of the hashgraph distributed consensus algorithm and co-founder of @hedera. He held a position as Professor of Computer Science at the US Air Force Academy and holds a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Previously, @hedera had an exclusive license to the hashgraph patents held by Swirlds, the company Baird co-founded. That arrangement kept the underlying technology proprietary, with Swirlds controlling who could use the algorithm and under what terms.
In January 2022, the @hedera Governing Council voted to purchase the intellectual property rights to the hashgraph consensus algorithm from Swirlds, Inc., the original creator of the hashgraph consensus algorithm and founding member of the Council. The purchase was made for an undisclosed fee.
The Governing Council members further committed to making the code open source under the Apache 2.0 license in 2022. The open-sourcing of the consensus layer was intended to accelerate its development and expand the number of contributors.
The reasoning behind the move was straightforward. Hedera stated that technical controls are in place to ensure that the network state cannot split, meaning the hashgraph patents were no longer needed to be used defensively to protect @hedera ecosystem participants. In other words, the patents had served as a deterrent against anyone forking @hedera into a competing network. With those technical safeguards in place, the IP became redundant.
The Hedera mainnet is maintained by governing council members that include companies such as Deutsche Telekom, IBM, FIS Global, and Tata Communications. At the time of the vote, the council comprised approximately 25 organisations, with IBM, Google, and Boeing among its members.
Sources:Hedera Official Blog: Governing Council Votes to Purchase Hashgraph IPPR Newswire: Hedera Governing Council AnnouncementWikipedia: Hedera Distributed Ledger
