The CNCF & You – Growing Community in the Cloud Native Landscape @ Kubernetes Community Days Israel

May 16, 2023

< 1 min read

The CNCF & You – Growing Community in the Cloud Native Landscape

You’ve seen the letters CNCF… you’ve heard about how amazing Kubecon is and you’re at Kubernetes Community Days… but what exactly is the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and why should you be a part of the community? The CNCF is so much more than just letters and events, it’s a movement. This talk takes you on a journey through the cloud native landscape and how the CNCF is helping to shape the way we develop and innovate in a vendor neutral environment working to solve complex problems through collaboration and community.

Speakers

Lori Lorusso

    Lori Lorusso

    Open Source Program Manager @ JFrog

    Lori is the Open Source Program Manager at JFrog. She has a passion and enthusiasm for working with the developer community and has traveled across the globe attending conferences and community events advocating on behalf of developers. Lori was elected Marketing Chair of the CNCF, appointed Chair of the CDF Outreach Committee, is the program chair of cdCon, and is active in the OpenSSF outreach committee. She is a co-organizer of VJUG and frequently volunteers to support other JUGs at virtual and in person events. She co-hosts the CD Pipeline on behalf of the CDF with TechstrongTV. She is committed to helping open source and other tech communities grow and adapt in our ever changing environment.

    Video Transcript

    [Music]

    so as you can tell I’m not from around

    here I say y’all a lot I’m from the

    South North Carolina so it’s so happy to

    be here in Israel I love Tel Aviv it’s a

    Vibe you guys are amazing

    so why are we here today we’re here to

    talk about the cncf Inu and growing

    community in the cloud native landscape

    so I’m sure you’ve seen the letters cncf

    a lot and you’ve heard about kubecon and

    here we are at kubernetes Cloud days but

    or kubernetes Community Days my bad what

    exactly is the cloud native Computing

    foundation and why should you be a part

    of it so the cncf is so much more than

    just letters and events it’s a movement

    and so this talk is going to take us on

    a journey through the cloud native

    landscape and how the cncf is helping

    shape the way we develop and innovate in

    a vendor neutral environment working to

    solve complex problems through

    collaboration and community

    so here I am again my name is Laura

    Larusso I’m the open source program

    manager at jfrog and jfrog is a member

    of the cncf and it gives me the

    opportunity to talk to you and to

    promote the cncf all over the world

    which is amazing uh that’s a picture of

    me and my daughter it’s uh don’t let

    everything

    um you see believe she’s smiling I’m

    smiling where this is like nine hours

    into a car ride to get home but South of

    the Border is this place in South

    Carolina which I think you can see the

    big Sombrero behind it and so had to get

    out of the car take a picture get gas

    and get going we had like another hour

    and a half to go

    please feel free to follow me on Twitter

    or Link in with me on LinkedIn I’d love

    to talk to you

    okay so what exactly is the cloud native

    Computing Foundation this is a picture

    from the cncf’s Instagram page and it

    starts with humans right we may be

    building tools that automate processes

    right we need the machines but it starts

    with humans and it starts with us

    so the foundation’s mission is to make

    Cloud native ubiquitous

    but what does that mean ubiquitous

    that’s a huge word so it means present

    appearing found everywhere so we’re a

    community of technologists

    that are using modern Cloud native

    technologies that are highly scalable in

    public or private or hybrid

    infrastructures we love the cloud we

    love the power it brings and we love

    what it does to make our jobs better

    faster and easier on the daily

    so where does the cncf really fit into

    our mission it’s with our cncf projects

    we have 153 projects and nearly 200 000

    contributors

    so how are we paying it forward we’re

    bringing Cloud native to the world

    so you’ll see a lot of QR codes in my

    presentation for a couple reasons I know

    people like to take pictures of slides

    but I want to get you right to where you

    want to be also as you can tell my

    slides are very ugly so there’s no point

    in taking a picture of them

    so this might seem like a weird request

    but I encourage you to go to read the

    cncf charter on their GitHub page and

    why am I saying that it’s because you

    should make sure that when you’re

    looking at foundations and communities

    that your value system aligns with their

    value system so what does the cncf

    believe it believes fast is better than

    slow right so we’re humans but we’re

    making the machine so we can move fast

    and get our jobs done we believe in open

    source values

    so everything is transparent right

    that’s the love and the value of Open

    Source it’s vendor neutral it’s

    organizations like IBM and Microsoft and

    Dell and AWS and Google and all the big

    names coming together to work

    collaboratively to solve a problem

    competition does not exist in that we’re

    fair you can’t pay to play Everything is

    transparent so we can see what’s going

    on and just like this uh this conference

    there was no sponsored talks that’s what

    that’s what’s behind the cloud native

    Computing Foundation it’s open it’s

    honest and what does that lead us to a

    strong technical identity any project

    that gets accepted into the cncf has

    gone through a serious process a rigor

    it has it is not easy to get accepted we

    have a Toc which is a technical

    oversight committee Andrew’s coming up

    on stage next and he’s part he’s the

    co-chair of the supply chain security

    tag there’s all these different pieces

    of the cncf that makes it the standard

    today for companies to submit projects

    and proposals into the cloud native

    space

    and what is what does that last thing

    mean clear boundaries we want projects

    to evolve but we also want to make sure

    that they’re innovating like we don’t

    want projects to get stuck so again we

    have organizations boards like the TOC

    that helps nurture this focus on new

    innovation helping to move projects

    forward through the graduation stage

    scalable I mean that’s the key right so

    a mom and pop shop or organization with

    a hundred thousand developers can still

    use the same Technologies to get the job

    done fast and lastly we’re platform

    agnostic we don’t want to tell you what

    to use we want to go where you’re at and

    give you the tools to make your life

    easier

    so what is the Project Life Cycle oh

    look at this nice little curve so

    there’s three stages there’s sandbox

    incubating and graduated so sandbox are

    those experimental projects right

    they’re on The Cutting Edge of

    Technology they haven’t been tested yet

    very much they don’t have a lot of users

    not a lot of adoption but there’s

    something there there’s that spark that

    makes the TOC say yeah we want this one

    we want we want to make this grow we

    want to see what it can do then you have

    incubating projects and most of our

    projects are in the incubating stage so

    that means they’ve got users they’ve got

    contributors and they’re just still

    trying to figure out what the end goal

    is and where they’re gonna how they’re

    going to get there

    and lastly we have graduated projects so

    these projects stand on their own

    they’re stable they’re widely adopted

    they’re production ready they have

    thousands of contributors tons of users

    and as you can see here from when cncf

    started to now

    we have the majority of our projects are

    in the sandbox and incubating phase and

    we have quite a few that have graduated

    so what happens why are you get why do

    you get stuck in sandbox or incubation

    well as we all know technology changes

    so maybe something that you did got

    replaced by another technology in your

    project so you’re still trying to figure

    it out

    the ones that are incubating are in the

    sandbox phase like those are Cutting

    Edge that’s the hard stuff that’s making

    the magic you guys make magic projects

    that are submitted in the sandbox phase

    are like trying to like figure out the

    secret sauce

    and then graduated projects go through a

    serious like

    serious rigor to get out of the status

    of incubation

    so

    how do you guys recognize any of these

    graduated projects does

    this guy look familiar at all

    so we’ve got kubernetes Argo flux oppa

    all these cool projects have graduated

    out of the cncf and I’m pretty sure your

    companies use them today

    so how are we going to go on this

    journey okay keep in mind uh sometimes I

    stay up late so things get a little

    weird

    so it starts with a pain point right so

    we are all now developers and the

    company called kcd Israel

    and what are we trying to do we are

    trying to get our product to work more

    efficiently and effectively and faster

    and what have we discovered oh well

    we’ve discovered that the people we

    inherited the code from we love them are

    old school developers just kind of got

    clunky along the way they have all this

    extraneous code everywhere and it’s to

    the point where we start calling this

    code where’s Waldo where’s Effie because

    it just pops up out of nowhere and

    you’re like why why is this here this

    doesn’t make any sense just like Waldo

    you’re like you open the book and he’s

    like in a zoo and there’s animals and

    there’s all these things and then Boop

    there he is for no reason

    so there he is hi guys so we figured out

    that we have a pain point and at jfrog

    we always start with the Y so why do we

    want to create this open source project

    well again we inherited a code base that

    was clunky we’ve got our Waldo code that

    we cannot stand so what do we need and

    we sit down and we think about this and

    we need an automated process we need to

    be able to identify code and classes and

    variables that are unnecessary we need

    to have recommendations for removal and

    we need notifications why do we need all

    of this to be automated it’s because

    it’s a painful manual process to go into

    the code base yourself to try to find

    the things that are making things slow

    so let’s let’s create something now this

    is where I may have been a little tired

    so we’re calling it project while don’t

    because we don’t want Waldo yeah you can

    laugh or not it’s fine

    so what is what is wall don’t it’s an AI

    powered bot that analyzes your code base

    so it scans your code for those classes

    and variables that you aren’t using it

    creates a pull request with

    recommendations to clean up the code and

    the best thing is that it gives you

    notifications where you’re working today

    which is in slack so you don’t have to

    keep going back in to check what’s

    happening you get that notification

    right there in your slack and then you

    can determine what you want to do with

    the pull request you want to change it

    you want to update it what do you want

    to do

    here there he is

    okay so we started developing our

    project now what right it’s all housed

    under our company kcd Israel how do we

    make this project get better well we

    need to create a community so how do we

    do that well we need users and we need

    contributors so that we win

    so what can we do well we can submit to

    conference talk so we can tell everybody

    how Waldo is going to save them time

    money energy proficiency all these great

    things because it’s going to find that

    code and clean it up

    we can write blog posts about it we can

    get social go on LinkedIn Twitter Reddit

    uh Mastodon all those places that people

    are at and we can just tell them about

    it try and engage we can podcast we can

    talk about it uh we can do twitch we can

    do live streaming showing people how we

    use our code and how it’s working for

    our company we can do YouTube all these

    things

    or we can just try and have our day jobs

    and work so what do we want to do

    what do we want to do where’s my

    animation

    oh because we want to there it is we

    want to propose it to the cncf

    laughs

    [Applause]

    like I said bad slides okay so what is

    the incubation flow so first let me just

    tell you when you sit down and you think

    yes my project is ready to grow and I

    want the cncf to help my project grow go

    check out the proposal page there are

    lots of questions okay lots and lots and

    lots of questions this is not a Sprint

    you’re not going to submit your proposal

    today and get approved tomorrow it’s a

    marathon and where does it start it

    starts with you and entering as much

    information as you can in that intake

    form if they say how does this improve

    the cncf landscape and you say well I

    think it’s cool

    that’s not going to help you at all and

    why is that because there’s this huge

    you need a Toc incubation sponsor so

    they’re going to look at your proposal

    and they’re gonna say this is good this

    is good this isn’t good fix it then what

    do you do you have to give a

    presentation to a Sig you have to tell

    them why this project is good and what

    it does then what happens oh this part

    right here the part we all love due

    diligence they’re gonna scour your

    project they are going to interview your

    users they’re going to look to see

    you’ve got governance in place what kind

    of Technologies are you using are you

    doing what you say you’re doing yeah

    it’s good stuff right this is why being

    a cncf project is huge for your

    reputation then you have your due

    diligence review period your Toc review

    presentation then we open it up to the

    community so they can it’s a request for

    comments they can comment on what you’ve

    done what you’ve said and what they’ve

    seen

    are you tired yet then we get the TOC

    vote and if they say all of these things

    boom you’re in you’re now incubating

    so again Marathon not a Sprint

    throughout this entire time you should

    continue to be working on your project

    to make it better but just know once you

    get to this point you’re in and what

    does that mean

    okay and this is just what we talked

    about uh what does that mean it means

    you are now part of the community and

    the cncf is like the secret sauce of

    trying to help your project grow it’s a

    foundation of doers right you are now

    you are not alone now you have a group

    of admins behind you you have

    collaborators you’ve got the Linux

    Foundation you have all of these things

    that are going to help you learn those

    things that you didn’t know when you

    were just trying to clean up a code base

    right now you’re going to be in a

    position that your project can grow and

    people can grow projects based on your

    project it’s going to be so cool

    yeah

    okay

    so here are some of the benefits that

    you get by being a project in the cncf

    reputation enhancement I feel like I’ve

    kind of beat that one down marketing

    we’re going to help you build your

    website we’re going to look at your

    website maybe you need a new logo maybe

    you need this maybe you need that we’re

    just going to help fix you up

    program management I think is something

    that people don’t ever think about but

    you have project governance you have

    admin support and you have security

    audits so you need to have zoom meeting

    set up you need someone to help you

    create your committees you need someone

    to do all the back end work you need

    your GitHub repo cleaned up you need all

    of these things well that’s what the

    cncf can help you do they assign a

    project leader and that project person

    helps you move the project along

    you get legal services or you have a

    trademark violation how’s your copyright

    going

    um you get tools so again you need Zoom

    you can’t afford Zoom you’re an open

    source project don’t worry about it we

    got you we got your Zoom we got your

    slag we got your last pass your you know

    hacker One account for bug bounties

    we’ve got you covered

    and the other thing that’s super cool is

    their services have you all heard of

    cloud credits you know how uh cheap they

    are no so we have we have places in uh

    we’ve got support in place from AWS

    Google Microsoft to give you Cloud

    credits there’s criteria to show you how

    to get through graduation there’s

    website templates to make sure your

    website isn’t going to attract those

    users that you’re looking for there’s

    tons of things that we give you because

    look at all that you had to go through

    to get here

    there’s also certifications and

    trainings so that you can stay apprised

    of all the Technologies that’s happening

    so if you’re like zeroed in on your

    project you’re not going to be missing

    anything because they’re going to be

    like hey over here over here we can make

    you do that faster because look this is

    happening go get training and then come

    back and add it to what you’re doing

    so here’s something you should all do

    you should all take a picture of that

    scan it and find out if your company is

    a member because everything that I said

    that is available for projects is

    available at a certain level for

    individual members as well training

    certifications all those things if you

    are a part of the slack channels you can

    like see all of this stuff so I also

    highly encourage you to join the cncf

    slack Channel

    what we’re not is we’re not people that

    are just trying to take money from

    corporations we’re putting that money

    directly back into projects to help them

    grow

    so again

    this is something for you to think about

    you know you can learn and develop

    yourself in Cloud native with the cncf

    if you remember if your company is a

    member there’s trainings there’s all

    sorts of things that you can do as part

    of the cncf community to help you

    elevate your skill set

    mentorships and internships Drive growth

    so the cncf is funded nearly a million

    in internships and mentorships over the

    year if you need help we want to help

    you that’s what we’re here for it’s

    called community and it’s so awesome

    so you’re never again alone

    we have ambassadors so perhaps you have

    an ambassador that’s working on your

    project what are they going to do on

    your behalf they’re going to submit a

    talk to kcd Israel and they’re going to

    come up here and talk about the value of

    your project and why Waldo is the best

    thing ever and why everybody should

    adopt it it’s going to get you more

    users more contributors adopters all

    kinds of cool stuff additionally maybe

    you want to give the talk so

    um Ambassador is going to help you maybe

    build out your presentation show you how

    to do it all kinds of cool stuff

    and lastly

    you can come to our events right kubecon

    cloudnativecon Cloud native Community

    groups and then kubernetes Community

    Days

    so being a part of the cncf whether

    you’re at a project level and we’re

    helping you go from sandbox to

    incubation to graduation or being an

    individual member where you’re on the

    slack channels and you’re contributing

    to projects

    one way or another you’re part of this

    huge Community this look at this

    community right now look at this room

    it’s full so I encourage you to check

    everything out and um you know thank you

    and uh you know well don’t what can I

    say

    thank you

    [Music]

    foreign

    [Music]