It’s 2017. No one needs to explain why they do open source software. Realistically, open source has become a corner stone of our industry. There are a few companies out there (not naming names, you know who you are) that no one ever expected to become major supporters of open source – or Platinum members of The Linux Foundation.
VMware have been engaged in open source for many years. We use open source components in our products (as you can tell from our open source compliance documentation). We contribute to many open source projects (from the Linux* kernel to OpenStack* to dozens of other projects). And we have launched our fair share of open source projects, some of which are highlighted at our GitHub landing page.
The VMware Open Source Program Office
In mid-2016 we created the VMware Open Source Program Office, which I have the honor of leading. Our goal is to move the needle on VMware’s engagement in open source even further. We’ll work a lot behind the scenes on our internal processes and tools, things that aren’t really visible to our customers and partners and friends. But we’ll also work on increasing the contributions that VMware makes to open source projects. From encouraging our teams to contribute more to the open source projects they use, to releasing more of our internal tools as open source projects, to contributing more to some key projects upstream above and beyond what we do today.
As part of this effort we are building a VMware Open Source Technology Center in the Open Source Program Office. Right now, it’s a small team, but that means the only way is up. We’ve brought in some key developers into this team who can lead the way for VMware to have a much bigger impact in the industry. And the plan is for quite a few more to come.
The Open Source @ VMware blog
The Open Source @ VMware blog will be a place where we will talk about some of our efforts. We will give space to VMware’s key upstream contributors to talk about their projects and the things they care about. And we will strive to build a broader community around what we do. This blog will chronicle our journey and provide an inside look at our progress. In the coming weeks you’ll be introduced to a wide variety of open source topics, projects, contributors, and opinions – through the eyes and ears of our development community. Our goal is to be more open, a stronger and more collaborative participant in the thriving and vibrant open source community. Let’s see what we can do this year. And the years to come.
