ChaordicLedger: Knowledge Transfer for Industry

Abstract

In the development of large-scale, integrated systems, consistent clarity and distribution of knowledge and relevant status are crucial to success. There are many existing methods and commercial tools for providing context and traceability from requirements and specifications to a system's artifacts, but these tools are often vendor locked, require access to cloud-based services, and necessitate high licensing costs. Furthermore, modern large-scale system development involves multiple business partners, each of which needs to ensure their teams have granular, role-based access to all relevant information without impediment; centralized warehousing and gatekeeping should not be handled by a single entity if the information is to remain readily accessible. Instead, a permissioned, distributed knowledgebase that avoids vendor lock-in enables a consistent, real-time view of information that provides equivalent context for developers and other stakeholders. ChaordicLedger, a free and open-source project, joins the transparency and smart contract aspects of distributed ledger technology with the storage capabilities of a distributed file system to fulfill this industrial application while allowing for industry-specific customizations.