Ontology has today released its ecosystem whitepaper which details the technology, governance and application ecosystems that will support the forthcoming collaborative distributed trust network. It also describes the Ontology Common and Ontology Custom design frameworks. Through the whitepaper, Ontology highlights the value of knowledge contribution, application development and ecosystem expansion to building a truly global platform.

The Ontology project was announced in November 2017, and is a public blockchain infrastructure that aims to bridge the real world and the digital world by creating a network that will enable cross-chain, cross-system, cross-industry, cross-application, and cross-terminal transactions through technology such as data mapping and smart contracts. Organizations will be able to use Ontology to reference data sources in multiple locations to create trust by authenticating the identity of people, objects or data.

Ontology has also taken steps to ensure that its identity verification, data systems and underlying infrastructure are compliant with various legal frameworks. As different regions and organizations have varying laws, regulations, technical standards, system architectures and functional requirements, Ontology has developed two design frameworks – Ontology Common and Ontology Custom.

Ontology Common will feature basic modules and protocols that are common to many business scenarios, thus reducing the barrier to integration. Some of these include an identity management module, a data resource management module, a smart contract trading module and a peer-to-peer communication module. Access to these functions will allow developers to quickly develop decentralized applications without concern for the underlying distributed ledger technology.

Ontology Custom encompasses the public chain’s customizable protocol and modular design. Some of the Ontology Custom design features include loose coupling, ‘single module, single function’, horizontal scalability and a diverse Ontology family. By using these features on one of many available public chains, applications can be built according to specific compliance, governance, and consensus requirements.

Together these frameworks provide developers with the tools required to build decentralized trust applications for all types of business scenarios and Ontology is welcoming businesses to develop on the platform.

As the functional demands of Ontology will be forever evolving, an ecosystem that promotes community participation and innovation along with efficient and effective governance is critical to the project success.

The Ontology ecosystem can be broken up into three main sub-ecosystems – the technological ecosystem, the application ecosystem and the governance ecosystem. Ontology will develop the core layer application interface that will enable the support of different business applications which will include distributed ledgers, smart contracts, entity authentication protocols, distributed data exchange protocols and more. However, the construction of these systems will require a collaborative effort from multiple different parties and partners.

Technology Ecosystem

The participants of the technology ecosystem will be comprised of individual teams that will be interdependent on one another to form one large group. The first of these teams is the Ontology core team who have strong capabilities in blockchain innovation and implementation. The team has previously worked on the technical architecture of large financial institutions, and has already completed several rounds of Proof of Concept functionality of the Ontology technical foundation.

The second group that will contribute to the technical ecosystem is the community who will attract individuals and institutions to help with development, testing, design and user experience improvement.

The third group will be comprised of technical partners, who will be to provide many of the same contributions as the community; however, they will also be able to integrate, operate and maintain technical support services, as well as bring Ontology’s blockchain technology to various industries.

Ontology aims to have an open, cooperative and innovative development philosophy and will work with partners and community forces continuously to improve the design of the distributed ledger system, including the Core Ledger, smart contract system, and security system. Ontology will organize various forms of interaction, collaboration and sharing between technical communities to foster further development, testing and design. Incentives will also be provided to application partners according to individual needs.

The underlying blockchain infrastructure will gradually become open source over time and the Ontology team and technology partners will have equal rights in the ongoing development of the technology ecosystem. However, Ontology will protect the privacy and intellectual properties of its partners, allowing them to choose their own open-source or intellectual property strategies.

Ontology will also actively participate in the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) and the China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s blockchain open-source project to further expand the exchange of technology and other forms of technical cooperation.

Governance Ecosystem

The governance of Ontology will be overseen by the Ontology Council. The Council will maintain the daily operations of the open-source community to ensure sustainability, effective management and fundraising security.

The Ontology Council is comprised of the Developer Committee and the Operations Committee. Sub-committees to the Operations Committee are the Executive, Technical Management, Application Management and Finance and HR Committees. Each committee has different roles and responsibilities in the decision making process and will be able to respond to high-priority events quickly. For a full breakdown of the scope of each committee, you can refer to section 5.2.2 of the ecosystem whitepaper.

In addition, the Council will conduct annual security assessments to ensure the network’s sustainability, quality and application. Commercial applications will be led by third party suppliers with technical support provided by Ontology.

Application Ecosystem

Ontology is public blockchain infrastructure, aiming for a rich ecosystem that supports all types of real world business logic and various industries. Third party developers can expect the Ontology Council to assist by integrating Technical Ecosystem resources to support the implementation of applications and services. This allows the opportunity for business to provide improved services that can streamline efficiency, save costs and improve trust.

A key benefit of Ontology is that users will be able to focus on their business operations without needing to worry about the underlying blockchain technology. Ontology will continue to integrate improvements to the network infrastructure and address business innovations. Businesses who build applications on Ontology will also benefit from the flexibility provided by modular and pluggable architecture with a loose coupling design, which will allow for the expansion of app functionality in the future.

Ontology is encouraging developers and businesses from all backgrounds to begin building distributed trust applications on Ontology.

Through the nurturing of these three ecosystems and the flexibility provided by Ontology Common and Ontology Custom, Ontology believe they can make their new generation of public chain infrastructure a truly global platform. The available modules and protocols provided by Ontology, coupled with the ability to tap into the Technology Ecosystem resources reduces the learning curve required to build legally compliant, decentralized trust applications, and could make it an attractive option to businesses.

The ecosystem whitepaper can be downloaded here, and you can join the Ontology community at any of the following links.

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