UPDATED 16:00 EDT / NOVEMBER 11 2016

NEWS

The digital revolution’s hidden secret: Open-source cloud software | #KubeCon

Buried deep within the heart of the digital revolution is a hidden secret. This secret is open-source software. Open-source software has been key to the transformation of business because it is low-cost, often free, and easy for a young company to modify and deploy. Because of these strong points, open-source software has produced powerful technologies for modern enterprise computing. To guide this explosive community, foundations have appeared, forming an alliance of businesses, startups and developers.

To gain some insight into one such foundation, John Furrier (@furrier), co-host of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, visited the KubeCon 2016 conference in Seattle, WA. There, he sat down with Dan Kohn, executive director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

Governing an open-source foundation

The interview opened up with Kohn explaining the philosophy behind how the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) operates. He mentioned it is a new organization, so the first goal is to look at giants who have come before, like the Apache Software Foundation and OpenStack, then make entirely new and different mistakes than those made in the past.

He then spoke about an unusual feature of the CNCF: that its business and technical decision-making is separated. A governing board covers the business side of things, while a technical committee decides on what projects to adopt into the CNCF family.

“That separation is critical so the technology decisions aren’t being biased by the business ones,” Kohn said.

Doing business and getting technical

The conversation focused on the business model of the Foundation. Kohn described how CNCF revolves around the Apache open-source license. The reason for this is a fear of summary patent lawsuits. He stated the goal of CNCF was to be a no-fly zone for intellectual property so everyone can collaborate without worrying about legal problems.

The technical side of the CNCF is all about projects. Kohn related that he would like to see one new project a month, but doubted they would get that fast. To help, they’re using an inception strategy of trying out projects earlier than normal. Kohn hoped that would give them a good velocity.

*Disclosure: The Linux Foundation and other companies sponsor some KubeCon 2016 segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither The Linux Foundation nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of KubeCon 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE

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