eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
The Linux Foundation has long positioned itself to be the home for big open-source collaborative efforts. On March 12, the list of efforts hosted by the Linux Foundation is set to grow with the launch of the new Continuous Delivery Foundation and the integration of the Open JS Foundation.
The Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF) brings together the most popular open-source continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) projects, including Jenkins and Spinnaker, under an open multi-stakeholder governance model. The Open JS Foundation, on the hand, is a merger of the Node.js and JS Foundation groups, bringing the two efforts together to help advance the state JavaScript frameworks.
“CD encompasses both integration and delivery especially given the recent industry trend of shifting left—that is, catching problems early in the software lifecycle before code hits production,” Chris Aniszczyk, vice president of developer relations for the Linux Foundation and CTO of Cloud Native Computing Foundation, told eWEEK.
CI/CD has become a leading trend in development in recent years, with developers building and deploying code in an integrated workflow that is often referred to as DevOps. With CI/CD and DevOps, rather than code development being a siloed effort, development flows through to deployment and operations, enabling faster outcomes.
The CDF at the outset will have several open-source efforts, including Jenkins, which is an open source CI/CD system. Jenkins itself was originally a fork of the open-source Hudson effort, which is hosted at the open-source Eclipse Foundation. CDF also includes Spinnaker, which is an open-source multicloud CD solution that was originally created by Netflix. CDF also includes Tekton, an open-source project and specification for CI/CD components.
CDF Governance
The CDF will have a governance structure much like other Linux Foundation-led efforts such as the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Aniszczyk said that the CDF will have a governing board, a technical committee that reviews and accepts hosted projects, and a marketing committee. At this early stage for the CDF, it’s not yet clearly defined what the lifecycle process will be for projects and how new projects will be onboarded.
CDF also benefits from the support 18 founding member companies: Alauda, Alibaba, Anchore, Armory, Autodesk, Capital One, CircleCI, CloudBees, DeployHub, GitLab, Google, Huawei, JFrog, Netflix, Puppet, Red Hat, SAP and Snyk.
CDF Projects
To date, Jenkins development had been led by CloudBees, which is the lead commercial sponsor behind the open-source effort. With the move to the CDF, Jenkins alongside Spinnaker and Tekton will now be under neutral governance and ownership.
“They will be independent projects under the CDF with their own governance structure, so the day-to-day activity won’t change much at all from how they operate now,” Aniszczyk said. “However, we expect to see closer collaboration amongst CDF projects, since there may be more collocated events and the projects be in the same room.”
For example, he noted that there are already discussions to have Tekton adopted by both the Jenkins and Spinnaker communities, so there’s a concerted effort toward portable pipelines.
Open JS Foundation
In addition to the new CDF effort, the Linux Foundation announced the formal launch of the new Open JS Foundation, which is the result of the merger of the Node.js and JS Foundations.
The Linux Foundation helped to launch the Node.js Foundation back in June 2015 as an open multi-stakeholder effort to promote the continued development of the Node.js JavaScript framework. The JS Foundation was also started by the Linux Foundation, with the intention of boosting JavaScript technologies. By bringing the two organizations together the goal is to help accelerate JavaScript development efforts.
According to the Linux Foundation, the newly merged Open JS Foundation will bring a few changes. The first will be an improved membership experience that includes streamlined operations, with one central place for projects within the open JavaScript community where infrastructure, technical and marketing needs are met.
Additionally, the governance structure is changing for the newly merged effort. In addition to the board of directors, the Open JS Foundation will have a Cross Project Council, or CPC. The CPC will consist of technical contributors from both larger and small projects, and will provide governance templates, processes and mentoring. Anyone in the community may attend CPC meetings, and regular attendees may be granted ongoing responsibilities.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.