Linux Foundation: New Members Highlight Open Source Containers, Cloud

The Linux Foundation has bolstered its ranks with five new member companies focused on containers and the cloud. The move reflects the growing significance of open source across the IT ecosystem, the organization says.

The news, which the Linux Foundation announced Oct. 22, involves Agenda Open Systems, Apprenda, Doky.io, Exablox and Rausch Netzwerktechnik GmbH. Each of these companies has joined the Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium of industry and other partners that promotes Linux and other open source technologies, as a silver member.

While the businesses of these new Linux Foundation members center primarily on the cloud and IaaS solutions, the Linux Foundation is pitching their endorsement as a sign of the growing importance of open source containers in the IaaS market as well. As cloud-based software becomes "more prevalent than ever," the organization said in a statement, "new infrastructure-as-a-service models in IT—such as container technologies"—are also growing in importance.

More generally, the Linux Foundation sees this news as a sign of the increasing adoption of open source across all segments of the IT market. "These new members bring cloud computing and container expertise to the community and illustrate the shift to open source throughout IT," a representative of the organization said.

Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director, added, "The rate of growth across IT—data, connected devices, cloud computing, applications, to name a few areas—has set a pace for innovation that only open source software development can match. These new members illustrate this ever-evolving ecosystem and the increasing role of Linux and open source technologies to support growing business demands."