This morning it was easy to imagine the OpenStack Summit in Boston, Massachusetts, would be the fade-out of an open-source project that couldn’t find its place in the world — OpenStack, an open-source software platform for cloud computing.

At the close of day one of the Summit, however, host Stu Miniman (@stu) (pictured, right) and guest host John Troyer (@jtroyer) (pictured, left), of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, expressed surprise at the energy of speakers and attendees present.

“I asked at the beginning, jokingly, are we sitting on the deck of the Titanic?” Miniman said. After a full slate of interviews with guests, including executives from highly profitable, relevant companies vouching for OpenStack, it doesn’t feel that way, according to Miniman.

To be sure, presenters at OpenStack Summit seemed fully aware of the challenges the platform faces, and that it may have taken wrong turns in the past. “Today in the keynote, they started out with 15 minutes of self examination,” Troyer said, noting how refreshing this was compared to the chest-pumping common at industry trade shows.

Although, admittedly, “It can come across as defensive if you’re coming from a position that OpenStack is irrelevant,” Troyer stated. But OpenStack’s commitment to retelling its story to customers to better reflect its value seemed genuine, he added.

OpenStack’s avenues to revenue

A discussion with Red Hat Chief Executive Officer Jim Whitehurst revealed that OpenStack figures materially in some very large deals the company’s cut lately. And open-source software provider Canonical Ltd.’s Executive Chairman Mark Shuttleworth put hard numbers behind his words.

“He said they did over $100 million worth of bookings, and OpenStack is an important piece of what he’s doing,” Miniman said.

To continue this growth, OpenStack might ironically have to whittle itself down to be more consumable and get the quick “yes” from customers. For starters, it should not try to do it all or stretch too far up the stack, according to Troyer.

“OpenStack is good at infrastructure in certain contexts; the rest of the story comes from an application layer,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of OpenStack Summit 2017 Boston.

Photo: SiliconANGLE