Hyperledger_Fabric_Technical_Charter.md

Technical Charter (the “Charter”) for Hyperledger Fabric a Series of LF Projects, LLC

Amended June 26, 2025

This Charter sets forth the responsibilities and procedures for technical contribution to, and oversight of, the Hyperledger Fabric open source project, which has been established as Hyperledger Fabric a Series of LF Projects, LLC (the “Project”). LF Projects, LLC (“LF Projects”) is a Delaware series limited liability company. All contributors (including committers, maintainers, and other technical positions) and other participants in the Project (collectively, “Collaborators”) must comply with the terms of this Charter.

1. Mission and Scope of the Project

   1. The mission of the Project is to build a platform for distributed ledger solutions underpinned by a modular architecture delivering high degrees of confidentiality, resiliency, flexibility, and scalability.

   2. The scope of the Project includes collaborative development under the Project License (as defined herein) supporting the mission, including documentation, testing, integration and the creation of other artifacts that aid the development, deployment, operation or adoption of the open source project.

2. Ecosystem Committee

   1. The role of the Ecosystem Committee (the “EC”) is to facilitate communication and collaboration among various sub-projects (each, a “Sub-project”) of the Project. The EC will be responsible for:

      1. coordinating collaboration among Sub-projects, including development of an overall technical vision for the community;

      2. approving new, and archiving existing, Sub-projects;

      3. coordinating any marketing, events, or communications regarding the Project;

      4. creating, maintaining and amending project lifecycle procedures and processes for Sub-projects; and

      5. such other matters related to the technical role of the EC.

      6. Any project accepted for inclusion within the Project as a Sub-project must first complete, prior to becoming a Sub-project, any project contribution documentation that will assign the project name to LF Projects, LLC and other project assets to the Project.

      7. The voting members of the EC consist of the Chair of the TSC of each Sub-project.

      8. EC meetings are intended to be open to the public. The EC will designate one voting member to serve as a communication contact with LF Decentralized Trust, a directed fund of The Linux Foundation.

      9. As of June 26, 2025, the initial Sub-projects of the Project and their respective Technical Steering Committees (TSCs) are those named and listed in the GOVERNANCE.MD file.

3. Technical Steering Committees

   1. A Technical Steering Committee (each, a “TSC”) will be responsible for all technical oversight of each Sub-project. Each Sub-Project has its own TSC.

   2. Each TSC may choose an alternative approach for determining the voting members of the applicable TSC, and any such alternative approach (together with a list of then-current TSC voting members) will be documented in the MAINTAINERS files. TSC meetings are intended to be open to the public, and can be conducted electronically, via teleconference, or in person.

   3. Sub-project technical roles generally will involve Contributors and Maintainers. Each TSC may adopt or modify roles so long as the roles are documented in the MAINTAINERS files. Unless otherwise documented:

      1. Contributors include anyone in the technical community that contributes code, documentation, or other technical artifacts to the applicable Sub-project;

      2. Maintainers are Contributors who have earned the ability to modify (“commit”) source code, documentation or other technical artifacts in a Sub-project’s repository; and

      3. A Contributor may become a Maintainer by a majority approval of that Sub-project’s TSC. A Maintainer may be removed by a majority approval of that Sub-project’s TSC.

   4. Participation in any Sub-project through becoming a Contributor and Maintainer is open to anyone so long as they abide by the terms of this Charter.

   5. Each TSC may (1) establish work flow procedures for the submission, approval, and closure/archiving of Sub-projects, (2) set requirements for the promotion of Contributors to Maintainer status, as applicable, and (3) amend, adjust, refine and/or eliminate the roles of Contributors, and Maintainers, and create new roles, and publicly document any TSC roles, as it sees fit.

   6. Each TSC will elect a TSC Chair, who will preside over meetings of the TSC and will serve until their resignation or replacement by the TSC. The TSC chair would represent the Sub-Project's voting decision in the Ecosystem-Committee. The key responsibilities of the TSC Chair will include:

      1. Formal Representation: The TSC Chair will be the official voice of the Sub-Project in all Ecosystem-Committee meetings and official communications. They will be responsible for articulating the Sub-Project's positions, technical strategies, and concerns to the wider ecosystem body.

      2. Conveying Voting Outcomes: When the Sub-Project's TSC reaches a formal voting decision on matters pertaining to the ecosystem, the TSC Chair is mandated to present this decision, along with any necessary context or rationale, to the Ecosystem-Committee. This ensures that the Sub-Project's collective will is accurately reflected in ecosystem-level governance.

   7. Responsibilities: The TSC will be responsible for all aspects of oversight relating to the Project, which may include:

      1. coordinating the technical direction of the Sub-project;

      2. creating sub-committees or working groups to focus on cross-Sub-project technical issues and requirements;

      3. appointing representatives to work with other open source or open standards communities;

      4. establishing community norms, workflows, issuing releases, and security issue reporting policies; and

      5. approving and implementing policies and processes for contributing (to be published in the CONTRIBUTING file) and coordinating with the series manager of the Project (as provided for in the Series Agreement, the “Series Manager”) to resolve matters or concerns that may arise as set forth in Section 7 of this Charter.

4. EC/TSC Voting

   1. While the Project aims to operate as a consensus-based community, if any decision of any TSC or EC requires a vote to move the matter forward, the voting members of the EC or a TSC, as applicable, will vote on a one vote per voting member basis.

   2. Quorum for EC and TSC meetings requires at least fifty percent of all voting members of the EC or a TSC, as applicable, to be present. The EC or a TSC, as applicable, may continue to meet if quorum is not met but will be prevented from making any decisions at the meeting.

   3. Except as provided in Section 8.iii and 9.i, decisions by vote at a meeting require a majority vote of those in attendance, provided quorum is met. Decisions made by electronic vote without a meeting require a majority vote of all voting members of the TSC.

   4. In the event a TSC vote cannot be resolved by the TSC, any voting member of such TSC may refer the matter to EC for assistance in reaching a resolution. In the event that an EC vote cannot be resolved by the EC, the EC may refer the matter to the Series Manager for assistance in reaching a resolution.

5. Compliance with Policies

   1. This Charter is subject to the Series Agreement for the Project and the Operating Agreement of LF Projects. Contributors will comply with the policies of LF Projects as may be adopted and amended by LF Projects, including, without limitation the policies listed at https://lfprojects.org/policies/.

   2. All TSCs acting together may adopt a code of conduct (“CoC”) for the Project, which is subject to approval by the Series Manager. In the event that a Project-specific CoC has not been approved, the LF Projects Code of Conduct listed at https://lfprojects.org/policies will apply for all Collaborators in the Project.

   3. When amending or adopting any policy applicable to the Project, LF Projects will publish such policy, as to be amended or adopted, on its web site at least 30 days prior to such policy taking effect; provided, however, that in the case of any amendment of the Trademark Policy or Terms of Use of LF Projects, any such amendment is effective upon publication on LF Project’s web site.

   4. All Collaborators must allow open participation from any individual or organization meeting the requirements for contributing under this Charter and any policies adopted for all Collaborators by any TSC, regardless of competitive interests. Put another way, the Project community must not seek to exclude any participant based on any criteria, requirement, or reason other than those that are reasonable and applied on a non-discriminatory basis to all Collaborators in the Project community.

   5. The Project will operate in a transparent, open, collaborative, and ethical manner at all times. The output of all Project discussions, proposals, timelines, decisions, and status should be made open and easily visible to all. Any potential violations of this requirement should be reported immediately to the Series Manager.

6. Community Assets

   1. LF Projects (or an associated hosting entity) will hold title to all trade or service marks used by the Project (“Project Trademarks”), whether based on common law or registered rights. Project Trademarks will be transferred and assigned to LF Projects (or, where applicable, the associated hosting entity) to hold on behalf of the Project. Any use of any Project Trademarks by Collaborators in the Project will (a) either be (i) in a way that constitutes fair use or (ii) in accordance with the license from LF Projects to the Project and the applicable trademark usage guidelines and (b) inure to the benefit of LF Projects (or the associated hosting entity).

   2. The Project will, as permitted and in accordance with such license from LF Projects, develop and own all Project GitHub and social media accounts, and domain name registrations created by the Project community.

   3. Under no circumstances will LF Projects be expected or required to undertake any action on behalf of the Project that is inconsistent with the tax-exempt status or purpose, as applicable, of the Joint Development Foundation or LF Projects, LLC.

7. General Rules and Operations.

   1. The Project will:

      1. engage in the work of the Project in a professional manner consistent with maintaining a cohesive community, while also maintaining the goodwill and esteem of LF Projects, Joint Development Foundation and other partner organizations in the open source community; and

      2. respect the rights of all trademark owners, including any branding and trademark usage guidelines.

8. Intellectual Property Policy

   1. Collaborators acknowledge that the copyright in all new contributions will be retained by the copyright holder as independent works of authorship and that no contributor or copyright holder will be required to assign copyrights to the Project.

   2. Except as described in Section 8.iii, all contributions to the Project are subject to the following:

      1. All new inbound code contributions to the Project must be made using Apache License, Version 2.0 available at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 (the “Project License”).

      2. All new inbound code contributions must also be accompanied by a Developer Certificate of Origin (http://developercertificate.org) sign-off in the source code system that is submitted through a TSC-approved contribution process which will bind the authorized contributor and, if not self-employed, their employer to the applicable license;

      3. All outbound code will be made available under the Project License.

      4. Documentation will be received and made available by the Project under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

      5. The Project may seek to integrate and contribute back to other open source projects (“Upstream Projects”). In such cases, the Project will conform to all license requirements of the Upstream Projects, including dependencies, leveraged by the Project. Upstream Project code contributions not stored within the Project’s main code repository will comply with the contribution process and license terms for the applicable Upstream Project.

   3. Each TSC may approve the use of an alternative license or licenses for inbound or outbound contributions on an exception basis. To request an exception, please describe the contribution, the alternative open source license(s), and the justification for using an alternative open source license for the Sub-project. License exceptions must be approved by a two-thirds vote of an entire TSC.

   4. Contributed files should contain license information, such as SPDX short form identifiers, indicating the open source license or licenses pertaining to the file.

9. Amendments

   1. This charter may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the entire EC and is subject to approval by LF Projects.