{"id":14922,"date":"2019-04-30T02:04:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T02:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/canonicals-mark-shuttleworth-on-dueling-open-source-foundations.html"},"modified":"2019-04-30T02:04:48","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T02:04:48","slug":"canonicals-mark-shuttleworth-on-dueling-open-source-foundations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/canonicals-mark-shuttleworth-on-dueling-open-source-foundations.html","title":{"rendered":"Canonical\u2019s Mark Shuttleworth on dueling open-source foundations"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Open Infrastructure Summit<\/a>, which was previously known as the OpenStack Summit, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth used his keynote to talk about the state of open-source foundations \u2014 and what often feels like the increasing competition between them. \u201cI know for a fact that nobody asked to replace dueling vendors with dueling foundations,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody asked for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then put a point on this, saying, \u201cwhat\u2019s the difference between a vendor that only promotes the ideas that are in its own interest and a foundation that does the same thing. Or worse, a foundation that will only represent projects that it\u2019s paid to represent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somewhat uncharacteristically, Shuttleworth didn\u2019t say which foundations he was talking about, but since there are really only two foundations that fit the bill here, it\u2019s pretty clear that he was talking about the OpenStack <\/a> Foundation and the Linux Foundation \u2014 and maybe more precisely the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the home of the incredibly popular Kubernetes project.<\/p>\n

It turns out, that\u2019s only part of his misgivings about the current state of open-source foundations, though. I sat down with Shuttleworth after his keynote to discuss his comments, as well as Canonical\u2019s <\/a> announcements around open infrastructure.<\/p>\n

One thing that\u2019s worth noting at the outset is that the OpenStack Foundation is using this event to highlight that fact that it has now brought in more new open infrastructure projects outside of the core OpenStack software, with two of them graduating from their pilot phase. Shuttleworth, who has made big bets on OpenStack in the past and is seeing a lot of interest from customers, is not a fan. Canonical, it\u2019s worth noting, is also a major sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation. He, however, believes, the foundation should focus on the core OpenStack project.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re busy deploying 27 OpenStack clouds \u2014 that\u2019s more than double the run rate last year,\u201d he said. \u201cOpenStack is important. It\u2019s very complicated and hard. And a lot of our focus has been on making it simpler and cleaner, despite the efforts of those around us in this community. But I believe in it. I think that if you need large-scale, multi-tenant virtualization infrastructure, it\u2019s the best game in town. But it has problems. It needs focus. I\u2019m super committed to that. And I worry about people losing their focus because something newer and shinier has shown up.\u201d<\/p>\n

To clarify that, I asked him if he essentially believes that the OpenStack Foundation is making a mistake by trying to be all things infrastructure. \u201cYes, absolutely,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I think there are some projects that this community is famous for. They need focus, they need attention, right? It\u2019s very hard to argue that they will get focus and attention when you\u2019re launching a ton of other things that nobody\u2019s ever heard of, right? Why are you launching those things? Who is behind those decisions? Is it a money question as well? Those are all fair questions to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t believe all of the blame should fall on the Foundation leadership, though. \u201cI think these guys are trying really hard. I think the common characterization that it was hapless isn\u2019t helpful and isn\u2019t accurate. We\u2019re trying to figure stuff out.\u201d Shuttleworth indeed doesn\u2019t believe the leadership is hapless, something he stressed, but he clearly isn\u2019t all that happy with the current path the OpenStack Foundation is on either.<\/p>\n

The Foundation, of course, doesn\u2019t agree. As OpenStack Foundation COO Mark Collier<\/a> told me, the organization remains as committed to OpenStack as ever. \u201cThe Foundation, the board, the community, the staff \u2014 we\u2019ve never been more committed to OpenStack,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you look at the state of OpenStack, it\u2019s one of the top-three most active open-source projects in the world right now [\u2026] There\u2019s no wavering in our commitment to OpenStack.\u201d He also noted that the other projects that are now part of the foundation are the kind of software that is helpful to OpenStack users. \u201cThese are efforts which are good for OpenStack,\u201d he said. In addition, he stressed that the process of opening up the Foundation has been going on for more than two years, with the vast majority of the community (roughly 97 percent) voting in favor.<\/p>\n

OpenStack board member Allison Randal<\/a> echoed this. \u201cOver the past few years, and a long series of strategic conversations, we realized that OpenStack doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum. OpenStack\u2019s success depends on the success of a whole network of other open-source projects, including Linux distributions and dependencies like Python and hypervisors, but also on the success of other open infrastructure projects which our users are deploying together. The OpenStack community has learned a few things about successful open collaboration over the years, and we hope that sharing those lessons and offering a little support can help other open infrastructure projects succeed too. The rising tide of open source lifts all boats.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as open-source foundations in general, he surely also doesn\u2019t believe that it\u2019s a good thing to have numerous foundations compete over projects. He argues that we\u2019re still trying to figure out the role of open-source foundations and that we\u2019re currently in a slightly awkward position because we\u2019re still trying to determine how to best organize these foundations. \u201cOpen source in society is really interesting. And how we organize that in society is really interesting,\u201d he said. \u201cHow we lead that, how we organize that is really interesting and there will be steps forward and steps backward. Foundations tweeting angrily at each other is not very presidential.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also challenged the notion that if you just put a project into a foundation, \u201ceverything gets better.\u201d That\u2019s too simplistic, he argues, because so much depends on the leadership of the foundation and how they define being open. \u201cWhen you see foundations as nonprofit entities effectively arguing over who controls the more important toys, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s serving users.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I asked him whether he thinks some foundations are doing a better job than others, he essentially declined to comment. But he did say that he thinks the Linux Foundation <\/a> is doing a good job with Linux, in large parts because it employs Linus Torvalds <\/a>. \u201cI think the technical leadership of a complex project that serves the needs of many organizations is best served that way and something that the OpenStack Foundation could learn from the Linux Foundation. I\u2019d be much happier with my membership fees actually paying for thoughtful, independent leadership of the complexity of OpenStack rather than the sort of bizarre bun fights<\/a> and stuffed ballots that we see today. For all the kumbaya, it flatly doesn\u2019t work.\u201d He believes that projects should have independent leaders who can make long-term plans. \u201cLinus\u2019 finger is a damn useful tool and it\u2019s hard when everybody tries to get reelected. It\u2019s easy to get outraged at Linus, but he\u2019s doing a fucking good job, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenStack, he believes, often lacks that kind of decisiveness because it tries to please everybody and attract more sponsors. \u201cThat\u2019s perhaps the root cause,\u201d he said, and it leads to too much \u201cbehind-the-scenes puppet mastering.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to our talk about foundations, Shuttleworth also noted that he believes the company is still on the path to an IPO. He\u2019s obviously not committing to a time frame, but after a year of resetting in 2018, he argues that Canonical\u2019s business is looking up. \u201cWe want to be north of $200 million in revenue and a decent growth rate and the right set of stories around the data center, around public cloud and IoT.\u201d First, though, Canonical will do a growth equity round.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/b98h6EtvF1U\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Open Infrastructure Summit, which was previously known as the OpenStack Summit, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth used his keynote to talk about the state of open-source foundations \u2014 and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-14922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t