Improving diversity in tech communities is an increasingly popular goal today, and it’s no different in the open source ecosystem.

The topic is always at the forefront of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and one of the focuses of this week’s KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event, according to Stephen Augustus (pictured, right), head of open source at Cisco Systems Inc. and KubeCon co-chair.

“That’s a huge part of the cloud native community,” Augustus said. “[We are] thinking through accessibility, internationalization, localization to make sure that our contributions are actually accessible to folks who want to get involved and not just prioritizing, let’s say, the U.S. or our English-speaking part of the world.”

Augustus and Jasmine James (pictured, left), manager of engineering effectiveness at Twitter and KubeCon co-chair, spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. They discussed the main trends to look out for at this week’s event, how to get involved with the cloud native community, and the advances and challenges of diversity in the ecosystem. (* Disclosure below.)

Much work remains to be done

The way in which the open-source community works by itself has been favorable to diversity and inclusion. Long before COVID-19 took companies to work online, interactions on open-source projects were largely done globally, remotely and often asynchronously, allowing for multiple opportunities for everyone to get involved.

CNCF has also been pushing to bring more women into the system by sharing networking opportunities, highlighting women’s contributions to projects, and allowing this to be a “gateway” to a tech career, for example. However, there is still a lot of work to do be done, according to James.

“I do feel like the open-source community has a long way to go to be a more welcoming place for women contributors, things like code of conduct, that being very prevalent, making sure that it’s not daunting and scary,” James said.

More companies investing in open source

Another trend to be observed at the KubeCon event is the debate on security. The theme tends to permeate several panels, focusing, for example, on supply chain security.

“I am super excited to hear about the security stuff, especially as it relates to making it easy for developers to shift left on security — versus it being such an afterthought — and making it something that you don’t really have to think about,” James stated.

In addition, the end-user contributions will be another focal point of the event. Many industry players are beginning to see the importance of contributing back to open source, as they have historically used it to drive business logic and have not really made an investment in the product itself, according to James.

“So it’s really, really great to see large companies investing in open source, even having whole teams dedicated to open source, and how it’s consumed internally,” she added.

For companies that want to get more involved with the cloud native community and work with the KubeCon, the first place to go is the one-on-one track, according to Augustus.

“We specifically craft that one-on-one track to make sure that people who are new to cloud native get a very cohesive story around what they’re trying to get into at any one time,” Augustus said. “So, please add to the one-on-one track, hang out, [and] definitely check out all of the keynotes.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. (* Disclosure: Cloud Native Computing Foundation sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither CNCF nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE