I attended FOSDEM in Brussels, and it was one of the most unique events I’ve ever experienced. The innovation showcased at the stands and the hunger to learn among the attendees were truly inspiring. The zeal to explore something new was incredible to witness, people didn’t come for swag; they genuinely came to learn. The open source spirit was very much alive, and I often miss that at more marketing focused events. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, engaging in conversations about different technologies and tech in general.
This got me thinking about two things: first, that open source drives innovation. We've seen this repeatedly, from Linux to Kubernetes, from the cloud-native open source ecosystem to Deepseek on how open source projects spark innovation and later become the default, powered by contributors and the community. But can it survive without funding? No, because engineers need their bread and butter and companies needs to make profits too. So, the question arises: how are these massive projects sustained, what’s in it for the contributors, and how do open source companies backing many open source projects even make money?
What I have seen from my experience is that there are different models that can work:
- Creating an open source project, donating it to a foundation to get early and fast adoption, and then selling enterprise services along with support.
- Creating an open source project, keeping it with you, and then creating a pro version of it with more enterprise features.
- Creating an open source project and then selling support for enterprises.
- Creating an open source project and then creating a SaaS for it.
- Creating an open source project, gluing different open source projects together, and providing easy solutions.
There are plenty of ways companies can make money while still keeping the open source spirit alive, which is great. Big organizations at times gives flexibility to their employees to dedicate a certain percentage of their time for open source contributions (hats off to those initiatives).
To keep it short, engineers contribute to open source out of passion, to learn more about projects, to get jobs, to enter the community and climb the leadership ladder, to make a name in a project used by millions, and much more. What do you think are the driving factors for businesses and individuals to contribute to open source? What are your thoughts on innovation? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Coming Kubesimplify : Top courses from Kubesimplify are doing great(crossing 10k milestone), what are you learning and what do you want to learn from Kubesimplify? Leave in comments.
Upcoming events where I am speaking
The K8s UG Bengaluru meetup was fire! Had great conversations and presented multi tenant Kubernetes cluster security using Falco and Kyverno where the clusters were created using vCluster.
Awesome Reads
- With MultiKueue, grab GPUs for your GKE cluster, wherever they may be - MultiKueue, integrated with GKE and Dynamic Workload Scheduler (DWS), allows efficient distribution of AI/ML workloads across multiple GKE clusters in different regions by leveraging a global job queue to optimize GPU resource usage and execution speed. This setup streamlines workload management, reduces costs, ensures compliance with data residency requirements, and eliminates manual node management.
- Simplify the developer experience on Kubernetes with KRO - Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure have collaborated to launch Kube Resource Orchestrator (kro), a Kubernetes-native, cloud-agnostic framework that simplifies managing and deploying complex resource groupings through reusable APIs. kro enables platform teams to create custom end-user interfaces, encapsulate Kubernetes deployments and dependencies into single resources, and promote standardized, user-friendly workflows while integrating seamlessly with existing Kubernetes tools.
- Docker Desktop 4.38: New AI Agent, Multi-Node Kubernetes, and Bake in GA - Docker Desktop 4.38 introduces significant updates, including the General Availability of Docker Bake for simplifying and accelerating build configurations, Multi-Node Kubernetes support for realistic local testing, and the Beta release of Docker AI Agent for real-time, context-aware developer guidance. Additionally, new enterprise administration tools enhance security and streamline large-scale deployments for Docker Business customers, further improving productivity and operational efficiency.
- OpenTelemetry: A Guide to Observability with Go - OpenTelemetry (OTel) is a powerful, vendor-neutral framework for improving observability in modern applications by collecting and exporting logs, metrics, and traces. The blog demonstrates how to build a reusable Go package, "gotel," to streamline telemetry setup and integration, and highlights the use of Grafana's docker-otel-lgtm as a quick-start OpenTelemetry backend for visualizing collected data.
- Cluster API + Talos + Proxmox = ?? - Provisioning a Talos-based Kubernetes cluster on Proxmox using the Cluster API (CAPI), detailing the setup process, challenges, and solutions for integrating these components. It highlights key steps like configuring Proxmox, deploying control planes and workers, resolving issues with Talos compatibility, and retrieving cluster access, concluding with plans to explore advanced integrations like auto-scaling and application deployment.
- How to run Firecracker without KVM on cloud VMs - The PVM framework by Ant Group and Alibaba enables Firecracker microVMs to run on cloud VMs without requiring nested virtualization or bare-metal, addressing limitations with traditional KVM setups. Although promising for reducing costs and expanding microVM usage, it requires extensive manual configuration, custom kernel builds, and is not yet supported in the mainline Linux kernel, making it suitable primarily for early adopters.
Repo’s and Learning Resources
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