Shootout at the CNCF Corral
Alright. There was a sweater clad goat a moment ago.
Bryan Cantrill:Sweater clad goat? Yeah. What's that?
Adam Leventhal:Sweat what do you mean? What's that?
Bryan Cantrill:It sounds like, you know, you and I have the same disposition on dream descriptions, and this sounds like a dream description.
Adam Leventhal:No. It's the person you invited.
Bryan Cantrill:The sweater clad goat was there. Yeah. The talking seal was there. And then what happened?
Adam Leventhal:No. And I knew the talking seal was you. Where is the goat? Rachel is the goat, just to be clear. I I feel like you might have missed that.
Bryan Cantrill:Ah, it's an important symbolism in the dream that I didn't realize.
Adam Leventhal:Oh, there she is. Yeah. There you are. Rachel.
Bryan Cantrill:Rachel's here. Sweater clad goat.
Rachel Stephens:Hello. Y'know. Most professional of screen names.
Adam Leventhal:Exactly. You
Bryan Cantrill:know, I gotta say, like, mo I mean, Adam wasn't making it up. I kinda thought you
Rachel Stephens:know, this is, know, this
Bryan Cantrill:is the second time I've had poor faith in you today. Adam, we had a I am I I am remote at the moment, so I've got a I'm on a different audio setup. And it's it's a contraption as audio setups are. And during our morning water cooler meeting, we I I finally am like, okay, this should all work. And Adam is like, we can't hear you.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, that's what I thought I heard anyway. And I Yeah. You came in hot. And what I was saying is Yeah. Super hot.
Bryan Cantrill:And I just started berating Adam
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. For
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, really said some very unkind things. And To be clear And then you I had a big room for it too.
Adam Leventhal:Like, not it wasn't like a one on one or something like that. I
Bryan Cantrill:caught them on a big stage. Yeah. A of people there. There are a lot of a lot of people. And and then you said, I can't hear you again.
Bryan Cantrill:And then I I I think I doubled down. Then I I think at this point, you were saying, I I know I can hear you. We can hear you. What did you think I said? We can hear you.
Bryan Cantrill:And I'm I'm sorry. I just look I I and just been doubting you. I'm really sorry, you know. I'm just I I I'm in a I'm in a fragile state. I'm, know Let me be clear.
Adam Leventhal:You you asked about the editing? I'm definitely leaving that in.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh, absolutely. Of course. I assume this is gonna be this entire podcast is just me apologizing again over and over and over again. It's been an hour of nonstop apologies.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. And while that is That's what we'll hear. There is a secondary purpose That's just the second part.
Rachel Stephens:Of our
Bryan Cantrill:show tonight. So Rachel, this CNCF gnat shootout at the Okay First of did you like my metaphor? I think the metaphor is actually pretty good, the shootout at the Okay Corral metaphor.
Rachel Stephens:What do think? About it. I'm I'm always down for a good western.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. First of all, dad, you dad, you known it? Because I really have not known very much about the shootout at the Okay Corral. They God bless Wikipedia. Right?
Bryan Cantrill:They'll allow us to really go there's a lot of new concept that I I you know, because I feel like I've always kind of I don't know. I don't know. I just don't really know about
Adam Leventhal:it. Totally. Didn't get interested in
Bryan Cantrill:it. Right. It's shorthand. And as it turns out, like, it was the the result of a long simmering feud. It was like, okay.
Bryan Cantrill:You know what? This is actually this this is a better metaphor than I thought because there's a lot going on here. So, Rachel, do you wanna walk us through I mean, not to put this on you, but I guess I guess I am. Like, the the facts as we know them, If you if you wanna kick this back over, I can understand that. If you're just like, I'm not touching these
Rachel Stephens:the Okay Corral or about Sinead?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Okay. Okay. Corral.
Rachel Stephens:What do
Bryan Cantrill:you know about the Okay Corral? So the the the the the sky I you got Sky White Holiday. You got, you know, the white. Proud of you.
Rachel Stephens:Because I'll probably give you the Val Kilmer version, and you might know you might know more more full version than I do. Thank So if you if you wanna go all in on Okay Corral, that's gonna go back to you. But I I can give you the high level on Tanadia if you'd like.
Bryan Cantrill:You know, I I'd also can I just say that's a very nice shout out to the the now late Val Kilmer, someone that we kinda grew up on? And tombstone is the the the movie theater. The plays Doc Holliday. Right? And it's got some good I I Rachel, I'm sure you're thinking of that.
Bryan Cantrill:I that I'm your Huckleberry line that was very iconic.
Rachel Stephens:That's, like, my very favorite. I love tombstone. It's one of my favorite movies.
Bryan Cantrill:So what was that anyway?
Rachel Stephens:Good to win. Anyways. Okay. Yes. Okay.
Rachel Stephens:What about Everyone should watch tombstone. It's a delight. But yeah. So facts as we know them, I'm gonna start all of this with, like, a cover our asses alleged. That's just gonna apply to this entire thing.
Rachel Stephens:We're not sure exactly what's happened. There are different stories coming from both sides.
Bryan Cantrill:Like I said, Rashomon reference, another great film, Kurosawa film that everyone should watch also very Rashomon and and Tombstone both on point for this. Sorry. Please. I didn't hear.
Rachel Stephens:Exactly. But what has come to light in recent days is that there has been a dispute in the Nats project. The Nats project is primarily backed by the company Synadia, and they they being Synadia have a project that is with the CNCF right now, and Sanadia wants to pull it back from the CNCF and change it from an open source license to a business source license because they have not seen the, I think, monetary value that they were hoping to have seen through their CNCF partnership and thus want to move to a closed source license and therefore interested in moving the trademark, the domain, and the GitHub repo all back out of this well, the the trademark currently resides with them, so they say the domain and GitHub repo definitely reside with the CNCF. And therefore, this is kind of the center of the dispute is who has what, who gets to do what, and all of these things currently just a big kerfuffle.
Adam Leventhal:You you make it sound like a messy divorce.
Rachel Stephens:It's a really messy divorce.
Bryan Cantrill:It's a real right now, it's not a messy divorce. Right now, it's like a messy marriage. Right? It's part of the problem. Like, I actually think the part of the problem is that Nats I mean, it and it's like not at that metaphor.
Bryan Cantrill:Nats is like, we want a divorce. And CNCF is like, we do not grant you one. You may
Rachel Stephens:Yes. You are with
Bryan Cantrill:are stuck with us. Like, we made a vow. Like, sorry. Like, you stood we, like, we stood in front of our like, you made a vow. Like, sorry.
Bryan Cantrill:This is like, we are married for life. Mhmm. Which gets like just so okay. So one thing that should be said, so on the you mentioned that they want to relicense. It is unclear to me because they actually deny that they want to relicense the NAT source space.
Bryan Cantrill:The the with the Sanadia folks have used
Rachel Stephens:In particular, I think they said they wanted to relicense server, I think is what I saw.
Bryan Cantrill:Right.
Rachel Stephens:Well, the I'm unclear exactly what format looks like.
Adam Leventhal:The Sineadia blog post that Derek Hollison wrote, I feel like is very hard to pin down. There there there's language like, we considered a a a BSL, BUSIL license. We contemplated this. We decided, but but very little, like, we're going to take the following actions. We made the following decisions, and we'll do the following.
Adam Leventhal:It is it is very open. Open, I think, to interpretation and and I think a little frustratingly lacking of specifics, in particular around this issue, which is why there's Mhmm. Like disagreement.
Rachel Stephens:Well, absolutely. And I think one of the things that just I I think for people who are very committed to the open source cause in particular is the wishy washy language in and around open sources. So like we're committed to open source and that eventually this will commit to this will revert to an Apache two license in two to four years. Right. And we are committed to our open source community, but it's just because it's source available.
Rachel Stephens:Like, all of these things are very nebulous and not well defined and I think deliberately so, it seems.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, and so we, you know, we say that, you know, we that these kind of relicensing messages always start with like a message to our community. And here we actually have dueling messages to our community.
Adam Leventhal:Both mom and dad have a But both mom
Bryan Cantrill:and have a message for the kids. No. They do. Like mom's blog entry and dad's blog entry. And because I think that the and Rachel, I'd love to know kinda how you because I I think I heard about this by seeing your post about it.
Bryan Cantrill:The I think the CNCF blog entry is what kind of, like, brought this out into the open. Is that right? I think because the I mean, there's so much simmering. God God, mom and dad have hated one of those guts for so long. It's just like, where do you even start?
Bryan Cantrill:You got to go back to their daily life, really. The because I think that there are also one thing about this, it's like peel like one layer back is the and I think this is part of the in the CNCF block entry is that the NAX community took a vote, CNCF decries in secret to leave the CNCF. And the with this kind of this this exit exit proposal that they linked to that is now page not found. So now I'm not sure if so it's like, I know you said that dad wrote a love letter too, but now it's like that's been shredded. So now we don't have that.
Bryan Cantrill:I don't know. I I don't actually know. But so there's that kind of, like yeah.
Rachel Stephens:If you if you go into the CNCF GitHub repo, they have a letter from Sanadia to the CNCF technical oversight committee day dated April 9 about their exit proposal. So I think there's been a lot brewing in the, like, semi open background. Like, if you were at least clued in to be looking for it or like, I I guess I don't know how much of this was open prior to all of this because it showed up in the GitHub repo five days ago. So it clearly has been simmering for at least a month. But for me, I found out about it from the CNCF blog post that surfaced last week.
Rachel Stephens:Then It's he's A
Bryan Cantrill:blog post that includes, like, a them replicating a payment that they made to Sanydi. It's like, this is the we're like, we're already off to, like, this is not good. This is we're already we're already adjudicating this in the public, which is
Adam Leventhal:Are you talking about the $10,000?
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. The $10,000.
Adam Leventhal:To me, that is hilarious in, like, three different ways. So
Rachel Stephens:How many ways?
Adam Leventhal:The CNCF says, you know, there's this this I mean, first of all, Brian, are we ready for this? This is the second baseball intersection of Oxide and Friends because part of the the trademark dispute was with Major League Baseball and the Nationals, aka the Nats. So I love that baseball is involved.
Bryan Cantrill:Love to see that. Baseball is arguably at the center of the dispute.
Adam Leventhal:And for the
Bryan Cantrill:new OXIDE and French fans
Rachel Stephens:Hold on. You you should you should dive into that more.
Bryan Cantrill:Yes. Yes. One more. I would say I actually I'm not joking. I actually think it's seven to two.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Go ahead, Adam.
Adam Leventhal:But but first, I would say, OXIDE and French fans, go listen to the baseball episode if all this baseball talk is making you want more. But but please continue. How how how is MLB at the center of the dispute?
Bryan Cantrill:What is because there is this trademark dispute that MLB has with Nats, and this is and Nats is one of the very early CNCF projects. And I guess I should so in and maybe it's kind of rewinding everything because I I think that, like, everyone is gonna have in this this kind of Rashomon shootout at the okay corral, everyone is gonna have their own different perspective and biases. So I feel I should reveal mine. So I was I I I think I was among the first people that Craig McClucky called when he wanted to start the CNCF. And so I was on along with a bunch of other people with Alexis Richardson and Kimi Fornier and a bunch of other folks that I'd I Camille, I Camille, I'm still sorry that I roped you into this, but I convinced Camille to join on the the kind of inaugural CNCF TOC, which is the technical oversight committee with the idea that we could turn this into the kind of, like, the foundation that we wanted to see.
Bryan Cantrill:And I went into it I I think I feel like I'm using the same language that I use when I describe the Oracle acquisition of Sun. In that, went into it with of like a very optimistic that we could turn the CNCF into something different and better. And it didn't really work out that way. And so I like I have a lot of frustrations with the CNCF. And in particular, a frustration that I have, and I wouldn't speak for other people, but I'm not the only person that has this frustration, is I think that the CNCF didn't focus enough on the people actually cutting the code of these open source projects and the people actually using the open source projects.
Bryan Cantrill:The two most important constituencies in open source are the people that use it and people that contribute to it, the community. And I I have long felt that CNCF was focused way more on getting on on kind of on surfing a kind of wave towards it. It was then cloud native and containers at the time and getting corporate sponsorship, corporate membership and they were very focused on that. And very focused on increasing the number of CNCF projects and much less focused on what it actually looked like to actually help those projects in the trenches where it actually mattered. So I have when I look at this dispute, I see a bunch of things going on.
Bryan Cantrill:So I got enough take, I don't know, mom's side or dad's side or I don't know who's who. But the I I think that and I think that there's a like a lot of ambiguity here on both sides. But in this trademark dispute, I see something that really just it it has a grim resonance for me where the the the it kind of like whenever one of the frustrations I had with the CNCF is that they're really trying to leverage the strengths of projects and then when those projects needed help, them being kind of abandoned. And like, in all and that often that help was like very pedestrian. Like, hey, like, we really need help documenting this thing.
Bryan Cantrill:This is true for Kubernetes. And I think that I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to say that, you know, this is a frustration that Brian Grant had, for example, for a long time. It's like, I really need people that to help on the documentation of Kubernetes and like, can we please put all this money that you're raising to work actually, like hiring people to actually go do this stuff? And unfortunately, kind of the way it was phrased is that the CNCF was in my again, I know I'm being it sounds like I'm being a bit cynical, but more dedicated to kind of the optics of providing that help than sometimes actually providing that help. And so they're like, oh, no, look like we pay, you know, we did it, we engaged this contractor for for I'm sure you've never heard anything like this before, but the we engaged this contractor for $30,000 like what are you possibly complaining about?
Bryan Cantrill:And that's kind of what I see in this dispute with MLB over the trademark. So NATS is one of the along with Kubernetes is a very early project that's interested in CNCF. The CNCF has this kind of strange momentum that is being very much fed by the Linux Foundation.
Rachel Stephens:And it
Bryan Cantrill:should be said, first of all, like complaint number one, the CNCF is not a foundation. It is an organization within the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation is the foundation. And I always felt that that was a little because there was Rachel, you remember kind of the foundation mania when the LF was kind of pumping out foundations. Pseudo foundations.
Bryan Cantrill:Right? These are actually just like organizations.
Rachel Stephens:Yeah. And There's no form nine nineties for all the sub foundations. That it's only for LF.
Bryan Cantrill:The the it's only for the ILF. So we really are talking always about the Linux Foundation and then its many organizational units. And I think actually, companies, I think, have bridled at the idea of, like, wait a minute. I gotta pay a separate membership foundation membership fee to all of these different foundations? Like, why can't you actually I so I think there was, a frustration from from kind of the the the donor base on on that one.
Bryan Cantrill:But the the what I see. So I'll tell you the thing that was just like, oh my god, this just like sounds so incredibly familiar is that when they they kind of hit hot water, they're basically told you need to go resolve this with MLB. And and part of that that oh, guess proposed settlement from MLB was, well, it was going to restrict the use too much. And CNCF is like, well, we really stood up and we said like, no, no, no, like you can't do that. You can't restrict the use.
Bryan Cantrill:And so what you actually should do is and CNCF says it in their plug entry. We we gave them two options. Rename the project, or resolve the dispute with MLB and transfer the marks to CNCF post settlement.
Adam Leventhal:Well, thanks for the help.
Bryan Cantrill:Thanks for the fucking help. Like, those are the two options. And, I mean, if anything, like, I think that Sanadia aired or Abcero? Who was it that this is where I get
Adam Leventhal:also gets like This this this isn't Sinadia now. This is post Abcero, which does make it more confusing. E even weirder.
Rachel Stephens:We're we're into trademark land, which means that Adam Jacob has opinions, and he is here. So let him in.
Adam Jacob:Oh, trademarks. Hello.
Bryan Cantrill:But I don't know. Adam, did you I mean, am I you see, you have the same reaction to those. Look. The yeah. I feel like the CNCF is telling on themselves with those.
Bryan Cantrill:Those are the two like, those are the two those are both. Like, first of all, rename the project.
Adam Jacob:I'm sorry.
Bryan Cantrill:Go fuck yourself.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. I mean, I I'm look. I'm per I'm deeply conflicted in a way that perhaps my, like, Twitter blue sky rants don't show. And that, like, I think the CNCF, by and large, has not been good for open source in general. And and in fact has been, you know, probably net negative.
Adam Jacob:Certainly, it's net negative if what you're trying to do is use is build a company where open source is part of what you believe and sort of you want to be foundation of a company. That's not the CNCF's fault. Like, that's more our collective fault that we're not very good at that. But it certainly hasn't helped because it really pushes that view that, like, the only good open source or the only true open source is big foundation open source with lots of contributors, which just isn't true and has never been true. And I think yeah.
Adam Jacob:Then you get into the trademark dispute and, you know, the CNCF for a long time, from my perspective, has sort of prided themselves on being, like, the anti foundation foundation. You know, where, like, you know, if you try to join the ASF, they've got all these, like, rules and procedures and, you know, votes and and, you know, what an infrastructure they help you with. What a mess. And, like We
Bryan Cantrill:see you've you've supplied things to that bag of money, sir, that you are holding in your hand. You hand that over to me,
Adam Jacob:and you are a
Bryan Cantrill:full fledged Yeah. You pay number.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. You pay your Jim Zemlin tax or whatever, and then now you're in the landscape. You know? And and okay. You know?
Adam Jacob:Fine. But, like, that's because what it is is an industry consortium, and it's an industry consortium masquerading as an open source foundation. That's how I feel about it. Yep. Yep.
Adam Jacob:I think but that doesn't mean that there's not filled with people who are, you know, good and kind or whatever. And, like, in this particular instance, you know, like, NAT's deciding to not be open source anymore, like, is a problem for me. Personally, we use a ton of NAT's. I chose it for that very purpose, and I knew what I was doing. And, like, I have no intention of having all my customers pay NAT's pay Sanadia.
Adam Jacob:Right? I pay Sanadia, but I don't intend that my customers necessarily would. Right? Yeah. And, like, those things only get more complex for me.
Adam Jacob:And, like, it's upsetting that that social contract is being broken. And at the same time, like, you can't deny that it's not like Nats had a ton of contributors from the outside. Right? The people who build Nats are, like, good and kind people. You know?
Adam Jacob:Should they be able to get their trademark back? I mean, no. If they had assigned it, but it doesn't look like they did. And so you're kind of like, live by the sword, die by the sword a little, I guess, is how I feel about that. You know?
Adam Jacob:Like, probably should've gotten that trademark foundation people. You know?
Bryan Cantrill:Also, as long as we're gonna talk about, like, no take backs, which is I I I feel like verbatim was coming from the CNCF. Yeah. At some so at some point, we're gonna need to talk about the the thing that actually was very upsetting to me and died silently, which was this cluster that Intel had donated to the CNCF.
Adam Leventhal:So definitely wanna get into the reasons why one would join one one would send a project in, but I just have finished on the trademark and that dispute with the lawyers and the $10,000. The the thing that is so amusing to me is Yeah. CNC and F holding up $10,000, which I'm sure would like, if anyone who's worked with a lawyer knows, $10,000 gets you, like, half the conversation, like, nothing.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah.
Adam Jacob:This was not a trademark dispute that involved arguing. You can tell.
Rachel Stephens:Did you read the letters from Senadia's lawyer? Because they also held up, we will reimburse you for your domain name costs. Like, I mean, every everyone is holding up ridiculously small sums of money here. Yes.
Bryan Cantrill:But the thing that
Adam Leventhal:I love most, I'm
Bryan Cantrill:not sure
Adam Jacob:about the amount of money that they've paid to be CNCF members over the years. You know? That Linux Foundation tax, way fucking higher
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah.
Adam Jacob:Than their lawyer fees. You know?
Adam Leventhal:The thing I love most about this $10,000, though, is that they do get a check. You know, Sunadia does apparently get a check, and I don't know why Derek posted this on GitHub. But he says, due to circumstances that I don't necessarily place on the CNCF, the check was stale and no longer valid when we went to cash it. No representative from the CFCF offered to replace it. I just love that aspect of it.
Adam Leventhal:They're like, yeah. They gave us a $10,000 check. We sort of forgot about it because it
Rachel Stephens:was so mean, like, you didn't cash the check-in ninety days? Like, I feel like that that's the only interpretation I have on that one.
Adam Leventhal:I I also love that he said cashing rather than depositing. Like, oh, jeez.
Bryan Cantrill:We don't we don't fear money bad guys.
Adam Leventhal:Like, let's I'll go to the same day loan
Rachel Stephens:kind of place. I love it. That's like that's the only kind of check I've ever like, I don't get checks anymore.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. No one's getting checks.
Rachel Stephens:Who gets a check anymore?
Bryan Cantrill:I do like Canadian kept asking us to make the checkout to cash, and we told them that our controllers wouldn't actually allow us to do that. I mean, it's just I that's a very good pull out about the fact that you're like, you know, the language here is just slightly off. What do you mean cash check? I love it. Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:I know. Well, it it it you know, I think that you I which I love what you're saying. Everyone is, like, waving around these tiny sums of money. And it it because and I think it also it's like, it that's not what it's about, I think. I think that the and and I I do think I mean, I think that the that the course that these two things are on is is an ill advised course for both parties.
Bryan Cantrill:And I I think that this is like if there's a consensus out there, I I think that that that is broadly a consensus. I think there's a danger in because you could be like, god, I can't believe it, like, Seneidia pulled off the impossible. They made me side with the CNCF. And I think that, like, that is overly reductive because I think that there is so much ambiguity here. I I war between these two is a very bad idea.
Adam Jacob:And Yeah. I don't understand. If I'm if I'm Sanadia and what I wanted was more revenue from Nats, this is not the way I would have gone about it. And and, like and I'm kind of an absolutist about the fact that they should get that money. You know what I mean?
Adam Jacob:Like, I'm I've really put a lot of time figuring out how do we make a lot of money from open source stuff. Like, I'm a I get it. I've I'm I'm on their side in that regard. And also that what you wanna do is get into a legal argument with the CNCF. Like, I just don't see how that serves you.
Adam Jacob:And they have multiple options that of things they could have done that would not have caused war, and they just they just chose war in a way that makes me think that they didn't even really consider that it would be war. You know what I mean? And, like and then the CNCF, like, announced it first. That was weird too. You know?
Adam Jacob:Like Yes. Why did this
Bryan Cantrill:Yes.
Adam Jacob:Why did CNCF announce they had bad intentions?
Bryan Cantrill:You know what I mean?
Adam Jacob:These guys will Mike could do a bad thing soon. You know? I don't know. Very strange.
Rachel Stephens:Yeah. But, like, to to to go with what Adam said, it's like so I'm I'm gonna go back to the letter from lawyers. I dropped the link. But it's as should be clear, the Nats. Project has failed to thrive as a CNCF project.
Rachel Stephens:Like, why would you publish this if, like, if going after revenue is your goal? Like Right.
Adam Jacob:You shouldn't
Rachel Stephens:go that that should never be something they be publishing.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. Our software failed to thrive.
Rachel Stephens:Failure to thrive is never something that you want to associate with your project. And I would argue it has not failed
Adam Jacob:to thrive. It's actually been pretty great. But and yet, here we are.
Rachel Stephens:Well, how
Bryan Cantrill:Well, so but but so I think that the the thing that is frustrating, I know it's frustrating on the NAT side is there's this is this dumbass taxonomy in the CNCF about these different projects. And you have the the I we've got graduated projects. And I this is like and, Adam, I know you can just, like, panel. It's like the metaphors are also mixed because we have, like, a sandbox and then we graduate. I'm like, what's the metaphor here?
Bryan Cantrill:I like, are we in a playground or are we in a school? Like, we we can't even get our metaphors right. I would always call the sandbox the litter box, which people got very upset about. The but this idea that, like, we got we're gonna have this different taxonomy of projects, and then we are going to graduate a project because the part of what Nats is frustrated about is Nats was not graduated. I guess the diploma was, like, super important to them.
Bryan Cantrill:I don't know.
Adam Jacob:I don't know how Nats could not be graduated, but Linkerd was.
Bryan Cantrill:Mhmm.
Adam Jacob:Right? You're just like, what are the rules here?
Adam Leventhal:What does graduation confer upon you? I tried to figure that out and it seemed like just like more CNCF. Like, not not year release.
Bryan Cantrill:Not free. On the GitHub repo moves from the left side of the repo to the right side of the repo as you cross the podium.
Rachel Stephens:And Yeah.
Adam Jacob:It's it I think it's that it's it's supposed to be some indication that this is ready for everyone to use it, that it has a robust governance and an active community. But, like Ridiculous.
Rachel Stephens:Honestly, like, do do you feel like maybe it's that they never transferred the trademark? Because that might have been part of it.
Adam Jacob:Maybe. You know what, though? It just makes me think it comes back to every time I asked the CNCF people, what does putting a project in the CNCF do for me? And their answer was, we hold your trademarks. And I was like I was like, what about I was like, what about governance?
Adam Jacob:They're like, not our problem. And I'm like, what about community building? They're like, nope. That's on you. I'm like, what about infrastructure?
Adam Jacob:They're like, nope. You get
Rachel Stephens:to pick your own infrastructure.
Adam Jacob:Isn't that great? And I'm like, wait. No. That sounds awful. Thing that
Adam Leventhal:I have that is valuable. You're saying, like, the only thing I have.
Adam Jacob:That part I give to you.
Bryan Cantrill:The rest And then
Adam Jacob:You know?
Adam Leventhal:All of the things
Bryan Cantrill:that I keep I
Adam Leventhal:keep. Okay.
Adam Jacob:And then later, if I do such a good job of giving it to you that lots of other people think it's great, then I get to graduate, which just means that you get to say I did a good job doing the thing that I was always doing. But without it, I'm not, like, necessarily ready for production primetime. You know? Insane. Which is also insane because you have projects that, like, choose one to the other.
Adam Jacob:So, like, my guess that why Linkerd graduated is actually because Istio graduated. Right? And so you can't say Istio is ready for production use and Linkerd isn't. Right? Because but because we're not supposed to pick winners.
Adam Jacob:And yet we're, like, clearly picking winners because we're industry consortiums. You know what I mean? Like, what is it? It's I don't know. It's very frustrating.
Adam Jacob:And, like, I don't mean to turn it into a, like, festivist about why the CNCF is awful.
Rachel Stephens:But, like, I Yeah. An airing of grievances. Oh, Jesus. I love that metaphor. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:Because, like, I don't but when I look
Adam Jacob:at gnats and and what has happened, like, I am I am very sympathetic to the part where, like, they paid all the developers. It's clearly them. Like, their own developers, even the ones who don't work there anymore are like, yeah. I kinda get it. You know?
Adam Jacob:Like, you really have to do some people wrong for that to be their answer. I haven't seen anyone who actually worked on that to be like, I am mad, which doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I just haven't seen it.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, they also felt like that the bar kept moving for graduation, which it it where I definitely I mean, you don't because when graduation is defined so poorly, and then, of course, like, the bar keeps moving because they want something else. And they and the ultimately, the complaint with Nax was, like, well, too many of the contributors work for Synadia. And
Adam Leventhal:Which was the opposite of what they said in the blog post, which was Right. You know, you're you're you're kneecapping the community because so many contributors come from not Synadia.
Adam Jacob:Right.
Rachel Stephens:And they're
Bryan Cantrill:So the the the well, and it's like also, like, I mean, I just so I do feel that, like, the and I think that the relicensing also gets complicated because it's unclear what the intent is and what is actually happening there. The fact that the trademark is, like, you know, because that that that the check wasn't cashed or everything else. It's like the trademark. It's like when you say, like, we take your trademarks, actually, you don't even do that. It's like, okay.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, the know, the the the I think that there there is so much that is murky here, but I think, like, the CNCF can't say this is a critical project and we refuse to graduate it, and this community can't leave. It's like, what? Like, sorry. So, like
Adam Jacob:I think I think they are absolutely going to say that because I don't think they have a choice because I think their business have a choice. Says that they must keep it here. Like like, otherwise, they're not stewards of these projects. They are they're clearing like, otherwise, the emperor truly has no clothes. So, like, there's no there's there's no question that this project stays in the CNCF.
Adam Jacob:Like, Nat's Nat's the brand is a dead brand, or it goes or they're gonna wind up putting a bunch of money into lawsuits, which is why I don't understand why they didn't just fork it anyway because they could have just done that. Or, like, the CNCF has accepted what Linkerd did. Like, no one's running NATs unstable. So, like So describe what Linkerd did. Linkerd decided that they were no longer publishing stable binaries under the under the CNCF, under that Linkerd umbrella.
Adam Jacob:So Linkerd is a is a basically unstable stream from head where they just build a binary and ship it. And if you want stable binaries and stable releases and you want, you know, you want upgrade paths and all that stuff, you go buy Linkerd from from Buoyant. And Right. That has really worked for Buoyant. Like, it generated a significant amount of revenue for Buoyant that did not exist before at the basically, the expense of nothing.
Adam Jacob:The CNCF was upset about it. People got very angry and talked about what terrible people they were, but ultimately accepted it because they didn't really have a choice because all of the maintainers of Linkerd, surprise, surprise, work for Buoyant. So it's not like they had somebody hit sitting around being like, oh, I'll track the stable. I'll do the work to make stable releases and upgrade paths and all that stuff for you. No.
Adam Jacob:Right. No one did that. So it was either let Linkerd leave, which they weren't gonna do because they own the trademark, and having them leave would be a huge black spot on the CNCF, or basically accept what William did. And, like, so they've already accepted it. I don't know why Nats didn't just go, it was good enough for Linkerd.
Adam Jacob:So guess what? Unstable releases. You know? You wanna get stable releases of Nats, you gotta go to Sinadia. And, like, the whole, you know, kerfuffle resolved, but they didn't do that.
Adam Jacob:Instead, they were like, no. We gotta put new features under the business source license so we could continue to, like, weirdly open core ourselves. And, yeah, I don't know. It was very it was a very strange decision on their part to invoke all of this this way. Like, it just felt really unnecessary.
Rachel Stephens:A
Adam Leventhal:question about the CSF. Why why do we think they won't let them leave? Is it as you say, Adam? Because if they let them leave, then it sort of, like, creates a it opens the floodgates or the emperor has no closes, you say? Like, what No.
Adam Leventhal:Why would they say no?
Adam Jacob:I don't I don't know. Maybe Rachel knows, but and I don't know them. I don't know specifically. This is pure speculation. Right?
Adam Jacob:I have no idea what's happening in their heads. But if it was me, and that was my business, which it is a business. Right? Right. Like Yes.
Adam Jacob:I would say that there are a lot of contributed CNCF projects that look like Nats and Linkerd. It's not just one. It's a lot, right, of projects that that are started by companies, contributed to the CNCF, that where they're not getting a ton of support because they're not the important big projects. The you know, you go to KubeCon, and all they did was talk about AI. They didn't talk about
Rachel Stephens:your project.
Bryan Cantrill:I was saying, I talked to lots of projects who were like, we don't feel that we get the love that Kubernetes gets. They're like, have
Adam Leventhal:you talked
Adam Jacob:to me?
Bryan Cantrill:Have you go talk to Kubernetes folks.
Adam Jacob:Because Well
Bryan Cantrill:they'll tell you that they're like, we don't get the love either. I mean, this is the this is the thing that was in. I can't remember if it was public or not. So sorry if it wasn't public, I guess public now. But there was a they're about to be public.
Bryan Cantrill:Kubernetes wanted to leave the CNCF.
Adam Jacob:Sure. And, like, all you gotta do is go look at the list and be like, how many of these were started by companies? And the answer is a lot. And how many of them are doing well? And the answer is not most of them.
Adam Jacob:You know what I mean? And and so if one of them gets to leave, you know, then what stops us from from what stops the others from leaving? And if they all leave, what happens to our, you know, what happens to our membership revenue and what happens to, you know, on and on and on and on and on? And, like, you get to wrap yourself in the cloak of being the great open source steward. And, like, nothing is better than a nice, like, game of no true Scotsman around open source.
Adam Jacob:Right? Here we all are. So, like, you know, I came for the game. So
Rachel Stephens:So Yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean yeah. Sorry, Rachel. Go ahead.
Rachel Stephens:I I I feel like I'm in a slightly uncomfortable place of being the CNCF champion, which I I I didn't anticipate.
Adam Jacob:But I said Good. So no champion. You're in a
Bryan Cantrill:safe place. Please. Please. I think I
Rachel Stephens:think I just wanted to go rather
Bryan Cantrill:explain your position.
Rachel Stephens:I think I'm just gonna go for, like, general open source foundation champion. That's that's feel more comfortable with
Bryan Cantrill:that. Exactly.
Rachel Stephens:Even though, like, in general, we all know that, like, the Linux Foundation is, like, 80% of all open source foundations. So it's kind of one in the same, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna make myself feel better by saying, like, open source foundation champion. I think one of the roles that foundations play, and it's an important role, is in the era right now of we've seen repeatedly single vendor open source, basically rug pulls.
Bryan Cantrill:Rug pulls. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:And we've seen a lot of enterprise vendors essentially seeing single vendor open source as a risk and wanting to move towards foundation backed or multi vendor backed open source as something that is more trustworthy because they see that rug pull as something that is something that can come back and absolutely bite them. And so we're seeing that repeatedly as and and growing as a risk factor for enterprises. And so I think the Linux Foundation, the CNCF rightly see defending against like, if that rug pull starts to come like, it's it's kind of scream. Like, if that if that rug pull comes from within the house, like, that is absolutely that's no good. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:Like, that that can't happen.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of with you, though, on foundations in general. Like, you go to the Apache Software Foundation. Go to apache.org. It is software for the public good.
Adam Jacob:Mhmm. You know what it is. You know what it's for. You know what it does. You know they're not gonna rug pull you.
Adam Jacob:You know? And in order to get into the Apache Software Foundation, there's a process. Like, they're not gonna you know, you didn't cash my check, so it wasn't really given to the ASF. Like, you literally can't imagine that happening. Right?
Rachel Stephens:I think the thing is that, like, on the one side, like, someone didn't cash a check, and on the other side, somebody didn't, like, require the license to be transferred in. So, like, I feel like this is a wash on the administrative, like, on both sides.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, woah.
Rachel Stephens:Happened here? Yeah.
Adam Jacob:It was whatever it was,
Rachel Stephens:it was bad. But Like But, like like were dropped on both sides. Yeah. But, like, when you look at
Adam Jacob:the difference between the Apache Software Foundation, like, Apache has weathered some real storms of of of projects that, you know, had trouble with monetization, where they had sole committers, like like, really put in the work and prove that that's a thing that they can manage because they have a calling and a purpose that is higher than business consortium. And CNCF
Bryan Cantrill:And and they are nine ninety. Their joke is a joke.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. I mean, if you click the CNCF website right now, it says make cloud native ubiquitous. CNCF is the open source vendor neutral hub of cloud native computing, hosting projects like Kubernetes and Prometheus to make cloud native universal and sustainable. It is an industry consortium. Its job is to push the idea of cloud nativeness into the world on behalf of its members.
Adam Jacob:And that is so different than the Apache Software Foundation building software for the public good. It's so different than the Free Software Foundation protecting GPL, which quite frankly, CopyLeft is the answer for this problem. And we just need to all get better at copyleft again because we were dumb to abandon it in the first place. See also rug pulls. So, like Hey.
Rachel Stephens:Can we give the can we give
Bryan Cantrill:the software freedom conservancy a shout out? I feel like in terms of the Sure. Mean, I know As long as we're in the b sides of of of open source foundations. Because I feel
Adam Jacob:But the And these foundations, just over there grinding it out year after year doing great work. Right?
Bryan Cantrill:And whenever the OpenStack Foundation changed their name to what did they what's their name now? They're they're a different name, not the OpenStack Foundation. But they and these other foundations, by the way, do not have anywhere I mean, you should go pull the nine nineties for all of these organizations. No.
Adam Leventhal:No. Just to be clear, this is a dark hole that you're advising people to steer into. Like, yes. Know you're not too.
Adam Jacob:It's You should not go down that hole. Just trust that.
Rachel Stephens:Not go down that unless it's your job. Like, I I I ask him anti Bryce on this.
Adam Leventhal:Brian, you may you may cite up to three things from the nine ninety now to if you want people down that hole.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, in the last case, they would all be salaries.
Adam Leventhal:Yes. So the salaries are egregious.
Bryan Cantrill:The salaries are egregious. Sorry.
Adam Jacob:But they're an industry consortium.
Rachel Stephens:But, like, the the the one that I would actually sell I was I was looking like, so advertising and promotion for the LF in I I I pulled 2023. I didn't see the 2024, but verging on 6,000,000. So, like, if if you're looking at $10,000 in my my patent fees versus I potentially benefited from a portion of $6,000,000,000 in advertising revenue over a course of seven years of being part of your trademark. Like, I I think that is a fair benefit. Like, if if I'm the CNCF and I am arguing against, like, this is gonna be nerdy, like, MBA talk.
Rachel Stephens:But, like, if I'm talking, like, cost based accounting versus value based accounting, like, the $10,000 is cost based accounting. The, like, the value of my marketing and advertising and being part of my network and getting in front of all of these enterprises and having the value of my brand behind you and seeing part of, like, a share of this advertising and marketing revenue year over year for seven years, like, that's value based marketing, accounting. And and that's not insignificant.
Bryan Cantrill:Isn't it though? I mean, I feel that you know, mean, the the money spent is not insignificant. The money spent is very significant, but it's also yeah. I just feel like the benefit is it's it's dubious. You know?
Rachel Stephens:Okay. I mean So so alright. So so I guess that's okay. So it's value based accounting. Is is it insignificant in terms of the value that Sanidia got out of it?
Rachel Stephens:Absolutely. That's fair that that's fair to argue. I mean, is it really an argument? Where are CNN is coming? Where CNCF is gonna come from, though, is 100% from that number.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. But what they should be coming from is much more straight. I mean, they, like, the thing they're gonna do I feel like the way this goes, they're gonna take that money. They'll back up the lawyers. It's not in Sanadia's best interest to do it.
Adam Jacob:If Sanadia wants to have that fight, they go ahead. But, like but I would if I'm the CNCF, I die on that hill that you gave us that trademark. And and in the end, you're just gonna see a fork.
Adam Leventhal:But but, Adam, don't you think that backing up the truck for the lawyers to go after one of your, you know Traverse. Litter boxed, you know, address?
Bryan Cantrill:I'm so excited. It's like, who
Adam Leventhal:is who is ever gonna sign up for that again?
Bryan Cantrill:Right? It's tough. Exactly.
Adam Jacob:Hopefully hopefully, very few people. Yeah. Because the truth is it's been really bad for the companies who decided to do it. And not just for them. Like, you know, we talked about the ASF earlier, I made it sound like they always do a good job.
Adam Jacob:Like, I think there's people who gave their software to the ASF that also have regrets because the regrets come from you created a stable upstream, a trusted stable upstream of yourself. That's just fucking dumb. Like, we shouldn't be encouraging each other to do that. If the reason you wrote all this software and put all your money into is because you wanted to make more money. Like, that's not smart, which which is why it then becomes an issue about it being open source because what you you open sourced it also wanting money.
Adam Jacob:Now the open source part is getting in the way of the money part. Eventually, that becomes the that becomes the problem. That that's been a problem with the ASF too. And, like but, yeah, companies, that logic that says how we do this as a business is OpenCore. And because OpenCore is what we do, it doesn't the best way to get the people to adopt the software is to give it put it in a foundation because to Rachel's point, otherwise, people won't trust us.
Adam Jacob:They'll think we're gonna rug pull whatever else we might could do. And then, therefore, we'll grow real fast, and then people will buy our enterprise software. Like, that was that doesn't work, and it's never really worked. And in the cases where it has worked, those those companies were such outlier successes. Right?
Adam Jacob:Confluence, HashiCorp, that, like, that they're they sort of prove the rule about how open source when it works can make you grow so fast that it just doesn't matter. It just overcomes all sins. And the rest of us, you know, if you're slugging it out for $10,000,000 in ARR, man, you have regrets. You know? And I think the CNCF for all of its for all of its I I know people who are there who are good hearted, kind people with, you know, trying their best.
Adam Jacob:Like, I I just don't know how I just don't know how they solve that problem. You know? Like, they kind of can't. And but if they don't back up the truck for lawyers, then what happens is what happens is those projects will start to leave. And if those projects start to leave, then this giant industry consortium that you need that, like, is your business starts to suffer.
Adam Jacob:And, like, I don't think I don't think they can afford that. You know? Like, you gotta be able to trust that brand. Otherwise, you can't trust the brand. Other way and at that point, what's it for?
Rachel Stephens:But I think when you say leave, I think that's interesting because I don't feel like, for the most part, leave is not an option. Like, most people are not gonna send ADI leave this. Like, I think you'll see things like flux where the underlying business goes out of business, And all of a sudden, the CNCF has a choice of, like, do do I figure out how to back this project, or what am I gonna do? Graduated, FYI. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:So it's like, what what do I do to back the project? And I do think that that's going to be something that and the CNCF, to their credit, did step up. They figured out how to back the project as a graduated project. But but I think that that's something that they have to consider is, like, what what is the path forward for projects where the underlying companies are not thriving? And I don't I don't know what that looks like.
Rachel Stephens:I'm not sure they know what that looks like.
Adam Jacob:I also think they need
Bryan Cantrill:to answer the question, why should a project be in the CNCF? And and so, you know, I I I posted out this this slide from 2017 about why the the the project should be in the CNCF. And every one of those reasons is basically bullshit now looking back on it.
Adam Jacob:Except for one. You wanna be on stage at KubeCon?
Bryan Cantrill:So the the the the the reasons, I guess, we should read the tweet. The neutral home increases contributions, which is like, what sorry. Are you what neutral home are we talking about? Neutral I mean, the I think I love this one. Endorsement by the CNCF's technical oversight committee.
Adam Jacob:It's like
Bryan Cantrill:Don't care. The I mean, as as a as a former member of the technical oversight committee, like, trust me, you do not want that endorsement. Then you get to priority access to a $15,000,000 1 thousand node community cluster. And this I was actually really excited about. I was really excited about the idea of and this is gonna be an Intel donated cluster, a thousand nodes.
Bryan Cantrill:And Intel is like, we'll donate a thousand nodes. I'm like, that's I mean, I think I was the only one in the CNCF that knew like what a computer was and how many a thousand were. And like because until I'm like a thousand, like, yes, a thousand computers. I'm like, okay, well, got like lots of questions about where they're going to be. As it turns out like the thousand computers, it kind of turned into a hundred computers and and I'm like get those things like like where's the DC where they're going to be housed, like they need to be in a an LFDC and like, no, they're going be housed at Intel and I'm like do not and then I mean, the the we were really trying to get this thing to work and they had they refused to make available IP addresses.
Bryan Cantrill:So we had one IPv4 address for this entire cluster that was sitting in an Intel data center and it was and then it was just taken away.
Adam Leventhal:Say that they had one IPv4 address.
Bryan Cantrill:They wanted it is a very small number. If it's not one, it's like very they did not have they did not give any consideration to how this would actually be used. And nobody and the only thing that anyone at both Intel and the CNCF cared about were the optics of that donation. And I was the only person who actually cared about making I'm like, this is something that's real and tangible that could turn into a real benefit for these projects. So let's get this thing working.
Bryan Cantrill:I know everyone on the is like, could you shut up about like the cluster already? I'm like, that's the real thing here. And then ultimately Intel just like silently walked away from it. It's like, oh, We're actually pulling it all back. It's like, oh, so that's all just bullshit.
Bryan Cantrill:That's all just like, okay. Well, so that wasn't a donation. And like someone to wave around the $10,000 receipts on that one. And just to your Rachel, to your earlier point about the the the decided lack of organizational excellence on kind of all sides of this. Like, yeah, they've got a $15,000,000 cluster just kind of drift away without any consequences for anybody.
Bryan Cantrill:And God it was enraging. And you sorry, we're only on bullet three, I'm so sorry. Engagement with the end user board, like what end user board, we never pulled that together. Full time press relation and analyst relation teams. Oh, Rachel, that's you.
Bryan Cantrill:Maybe that's are you in that one? You get like the the CNCF projects get like Rachel, do you have a some sort of VIP access pass to do CNCF projects get?
Rachel Stephens:Perhaps happens with other analyst firms.
Bryan Cantrill:That's right.
Adam Jacob:No. They meant they meant PRAR firm, not FastPass to a given analyst firm. They meant we have PRAR people.
Bryan Cantrill:20 k per year to improve your project documentation. I I which I I don't think that ever happened, but I mean, great if true.
Adam Leventhal:Sure. Sure. It's true.
Bryan Cantrill:Maintain your committers. Just agree to unbiased process. That's like why you should host your project at CNCF. This is like classic example of like
Adam Jacob:We won't make
Bryan Cantrill:CNCF cognitive dissonance. And then it's like the events. The a cube con and meetup groups, and then inclusion in the CNCF marketing demo, and then the the landscape. Like, that's the reason
Adam Leventhal:that you always You skipped you skipped full time staff eager to assist. Eager, but they're not willing. Like, they they're eager, but they're not going to.
Adam Jacob:I mean, look, can't make fun of their staff. I have no idea how eager they are or they aren't. But I think it's clear that, like, if you go through the list, they're I I don't think they can change it. I think I think they are ultimately stuck with the model that they have, and I don't know how they evolved to better meet this moment. Because the reason for their existence is is like, there's no moral center to it, and so there's nowhere to hold it.
Adam Jacob:So, like, here they are in this dispute with NATs. It's hard for me to be like, oh, the CNCF is fighting the good fight for the user. At the same time, like, I need an open source NATs, you know. I want it to work.
Eliza Weisman:I just wanna share my one actual war story from the CNCF. Not like a war story war story, but this is like there's real war in this story, which is that when I worked at Buoyant, we were trying to use I think it was not actually the CNCF community cluster, but a different, you know I think a hosting provider possibly had donated some, like, basically free machines to CNCF projects that you could use if you were willing to jump through the appropriate hoops through the CNCF to get, like, SSH keys. And we were trying to use them for our CI until we received an email from the CNCF saying that the the one guy, Dmitry, who could actually give you an SSH key to access these resources, was Ukrainian. And Dmitry had been drafted and had to go fight the Russians. And so now, you just if you want any of your, like, contributors to your project to be able to use these these free machines, you just can't because Dimitri is the only person who can give you an SSH key.
Eliza Weisman:That's my war story.
Eliza Weisman:Oh my god.
Rachel Stephens:No. That's a a literal war story.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. That's a literal war story. But yeah. I mean, Eliza, that is and I think, like, this is the, like, the the kind of core frustration that I feel in terms of resolving this dispute the CNCF has to address, which is your constituents in terms of open source projects don't feel well served. And the fact that Liza I mean, the that you were I mean, you you're right in the trenches of, a very important project to CNCF, and you're not able to get this kind of modicum of support because it's been hasn't been treated very it hasn't treated like it's important.
Bryan Cantrill:And they like, I think, Adam, I think it is a mistake for the CNCF, although maybe you're not disagreeing with that. You're like, no. Of course, it's a mistake. That's why they're gonna do it. But it is a mistake for the CNCF to litigate this because they are if to the degree that there is a, I think, justifiable perception that you don't do right by your projects, litigating against effectively one of those projects.
Bryan Cantrill:They view it as like we're litigating against the company, but your criticism of the project is that most of the people come from the companies. You're actually litigating against the project. And suing a project is an extremely bad idea. And it will I think it it it there is absolutely no reason that anyone would ever give a project to the CNCF or the LF ever again. They should.
Adam Jacob:Because Well, definitely can't allow I mean, look, what's their alternative?
Bryan Cantrill:They
Rachel Stephens:can't. They cannot They not do it.
Adam Jacob:They they cannot allow them to leave with that trademark. They cannot.
Bryan Cantrill:Scorpion. It has to. It like, it has to sting the frog. It doesn't. It can be a nice scorpion.
Adam Jacob:They can't. Like, if it if if it it's entire if if that's if that's how the if that's how this thing behaves, then what it isn't is an open source foundation that tries to steward these things as open source for the good of the public, which it barely is anything. It's a big leaf that that's what's true. But because it's so small, they, like, they absolutely cannot let it go. Like, if they let it go, then the truth is then there's nothing.
Adam Leventhal:Adam Adam and Rachel, what about the what about the wrinkle that the trademark never was transferred?
Rachel Stephens:Okay. So, like, I am sympathetic to the desire behind, like, running this successful business and wanting to have profitable business, like, economics of open source, everything that Adam has talked about. I am sympathetic to all of the logistics of the trademark. But, like, if you look back at the beginning, everyone knows that when you donate to a foundation, the trade off is that you are trading promotion in exchange for donating the trademark. Like, that is the bargain you are making.
Rachel Stephens:Like like, pure and simple, like, that is what you decided to do seven years ago, and you can't take that back. I can't so, like, there are going to like, yes, there are maybe extenuating circumstances in terms of, like, logistically, we didn't like, like but the intention when you entered this agreement seven years ago was we are entering into the CNCF so that you own the trademark so that we can be part of the CNCF. Like, that was what they agreed to. Like
Adam Jacob:Yeah. And I don't and I don't think that the CNCF should let them out of it. And Well, although, I I At the same time that I think that they never should have done it. Yeah. Well, I guess we
Bryan Cantrill:get you to live by the sword, die by the sword. Because there I mean, NASA's like, look. I know. Like, you're saying we're married. We can't leave.
Bryan Cantrill:The ministers, it turns out, was not ordained. This marriage never existed. Right? I mean, this is And
Adam Jacob:and that's and that's why they get to have a legal fight about it. And this is also why I don't understand look. I've been now CEOing long enough and had the privilege of seeing other people do it up close for a long time. And most of the decisions that people make when they're executives are not, like, company killing decisions. Right?
Adam Jacob:Even the ones that seem like they might be probably aren't. And and, you know, usually, they're yes or no questions. And the variation of this one where what Sinadia decides to do is to solve this problem by not realizing that solving it this way starts this war and that the and that whatever you know, you can sit in a room with your friends, and they're like, well, but we never cashed the check, and we still own the trademarks. And, like, you can play that game. And, you know, when you're talking to your mom, your mom's gonna be like, yeah, honey.
Adam Jacob:You own that trademark. You know? And and also, now it's you're not talking to your mom anymore. Now it's like the CNCF is upset because they you clearly were supposed to give them the trademark. And whether they accepted it or not, they're gonna, like like let's say that they didn't actually ever get the trademark like they were supposed to.
Adam Jacob:Right? That that's actually all true. Like, even that, they can't let go. Right? Because they they're supposed to be people who steward this thing.
Adam Jacob:Like, I just don't I don't see how the CNCF gets out of it and comes away clean. I don't see how Sinadia comes out of it and stays clean. Like, I think they should have just either taken the
Rachel Stephens:developers and left. Every every side ends up muddy here.
Adam Jacob:They're all it's all just because
Bryan Cantrill:Okay. So wars and this is why I like, look, war is never the answer. And and, Adam, have you ever read to end a war by Richard Holbrook? No. A really good book about the by the way, Richard Holbrook, about the the civil Croatian war and the and the the prolonged attempt to end that war.
Bryan Cantrill:And there was a Cy Vance had a proposal early on in in that conflict that all sides rejected as unacceptable. And the the proposal that Vance made is the current border between Serbia and Croatia. The after the the after a ton of bloodshed and the goriest war that Europe had had since World War two, predating obviously the war in Ukraine. But the the that war was truly senseless because they ended up arriving back at the same spot and the it is a giant mistake to to litigate this because I also think so another way of kinda making this point and a question to to to you both, well, all three of you, all four of you. If a project unilaterally decides a project, a community, unilaterally decides via a free and fair way of its contributors that it wishes to leave the CNCF, should it be allowed to do so?
Adam Jacob:No. Oof. Yeah. That did not work for
Bryan Cantrill:East Germany.
Adam Jacob:I mean So The the answer is no. They can take what they can do is fork because it's open source. And I don't know why we're all so upset about it. Like, the answer is fork. And, like, what you can do is leave.
Adam Jacob:You do not have to do it. You do not have to be there. You don't have to put your labor into it. You don't have do any of that. You can just take the software.
Adam Jacob:You can call it poopy pants and go on with your day. But what you don't get to do is hand over the trademarks, say it's in a neutral foundation, and then go to that neutral foundation and be like, nope. Kidding. Like, no. You don't get to do that.
Adam Jacob:You don't. Like Alright.
Bryan Cantrill:Adam, you're on the nope. Rachel?
Rachel Stephens:I'm 100% with Adam on the nope. I think one thing going forward is do we wanna reevaluate what it means to be a sandbox project? Like, bringing projects in. Like, do we wanna let everybody in? What does it mean to be accepted into the CNCF?
Rachel Stephens:Do we want this many projects in? And or if we have come into this and we're not going if we're not getting the traction that we thought we were getting, is there an off ramp prior to, like, get into an incubating phase? Like, I do think that that might be a reasonable path forward. But, like, once you get to the phase of gnats, the answer is no. Like, so, like, the answer is no altogether right now.
Rachel Stephens:Is there a path forward or there are discussions around, like, is there a potential off ramp for earlier stage companies? Maybe. But, like, hard no for where we are right now with this project.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. I'm gonna take yes in in part because I think that the folks I mean, there are folks who fund the CNCF and LF. Right? They they operate autonomously, but they do get donations, major donations from big companies who may say, I don't want my money spent suing one of the projects. Like, that's not what the donation was for.
Bryan Cantrill:Yeah. Yeah. I I I so I yeah. I I agree with you. I actually think the I I think what the CNCF should do is they should
Rachel Stephens:They have a whole legal defense fund. Hold on. Yeah. No. No.
Rachel Stephens:No.
Adam Jacob:Absolutely And that legal defense fund shouldn't
Bryan Cantrill:be used with NLP.
Adam Jacob:If this is an open source foundation at all
Rachel Stephens:Where was this family? Number
Adam Jacob:one thing it can't do.
Bryan Cantrill:They didn't go use it with NLP. Literally.
Adam Jacob:That's right.
Bryan Cantrill:The opportunity.
Adam Jacob:That happened just a decade ago.
Rachel Stephens:Their cowards were ran from an actual fight. What that was that actual fight with yeah. That's fair. Okay. I was gonna take your point there.
Rachel Stephens:This is not this
Adam Jacob:is not a trademark fight. This is a question about who owns it and about whether you're allowed to have it.
Bryan Cantrill:Fight with Major League Baseball. And we and by the way, like
Adam Jacob:Major League Baseball is contesting the right create the Nats trade.
Bryan Cantrill:Nats the message broker, and Nats the baseball team is, like, in this podcast right now. Like, there's no this is no one is gonna confuse these two things.
Rachel Stephens:That's why they lost. No.
Bryan Cantrill:No. But they had an opportunity. The CNCF should so okay. Another opportunity I see another kind of opportunity for a broker deal here is the CNCF needs to reimburse for they need to offer to reimburse, and Derek needs to cash the check
Adam Leventhal:Cash that check.
Bryan Cantrill:All all of their legal expenses because that that expense should have been borne by the CNCF. And so you like, you now, you're on a guy who didn't cash the check to keep the receipts, but I I really I mean, this is like the fundamental hypocrisy that, like, that that that I'm just having a hard time with is that, like, the so the legal defense fund is to sue projects, not to sue the MLB?
Adam Jacob:Well, you didn't sue the MLB because that's not what the trademark dispute with the MLB was. The Nats trademark was trying to be established, and Major League Baseball contested the mark because there was a
Bryan Cantrill:previous They should paid in the spot
Rachel Stephens:in that.
Bryan Cantrill:They should have paid 100% to to resolve that.
Adam Jacob:That that maybe. But, like, but I I can see the argument that says you don't have to because all you could all you had to do at that moment was change the project's name in a way that, like like, for example, system initiative. Look. System initiative is not a problem. We we our trademark was contested too.
Adam Jacob:Right? And we weren't sued. Like, they contested the trademark. Now you gotta, like, move through this process where you go to, like, a trademark adjudicator, and they figure out the blah blah. It's like a whole thing.
Adam Jacob:But, like, it is not abnormal for people that contest trademarks. I don't think it was weird that they in Major League Baseball did it. Talking about it like it was a lawsuit between Major League Base like, it's not a lawsuit in that in the sense that most people think about it where you go, like, hire the lawsuit. Lawyer or whatever, and you're fucking going to court. Right?
Adam Jacob:Like But but there were a lot
Bryan Cantrill:of legal fees that were born Sure. And it but but but this is a real core of the dispute is the the the the $10,000 that then admittedly they they they didn't cash doesn't cover doesn't cover even a fraction, really. I mean, they're they believe they claim that their legal costs were were on north of 90 k.
Adam Jacob:Which makes sense. I
Bryan Cantrill:believe So CNCF should make them whole. CNCF should make them whole. I'm sorry. CNCF should make should not a path forward is for CNCF to make them whole.
Adam Jacob:If CNCF believes that they own that trademark, then CNCF should make them whole because but, like Okay. We can't
Bryan Cantrill:have this one both ways, though. I mean, CNCF cannot have like, we are gonna have this super narrow writing of history where you owed the trademark when it was a big pain in the ass, and we owned the trademark when it was an asset.
Adam Jacob:Know that's though.
Rachel Stephens:Like So like, just
Adam Jacob:just to play the negative there, like, I think they maybe can. Right? Like like, multiple people built nets.
Bryan Cantrill:I think there's an entire block
Adam Jacob:of trade that explains what they actually Those companies decided that they wanted to keep that trademark. They also really wanted it in the CNCF. They made their bed. And, like, you look, like, you know, like Okay. So CNCF has anything as an open source foundation, it has to be a place where those trademarks are held sacrosanct in on behalf of their community.
Adam Jacob:And But I what I
Rachel Stephens:think Brian just described is going to be one of the legal positions that gets offered as one of the negotiating positions that comes in the arbitration here.
Bryan Cantrill:And by the way, you're to spend way more money on this. You're going spend way more money on this getting this resolved than you would just making them whole because I think that the part of where this comes from, I think and and the CNCF has to recognize that Nats is frustrated for a reason. They can't purely chalk this up to relicensing and acting as a bad
Adam Jacob:word. NATS. Like Well, then then that's a problem, though.
Bryan Cantrill:That's a problem. Adam, that's a problem.
Adam Jacob:I agree it's a problem,
Rachel Stephens:but they
Adam Jacob:don't I don't I don't I think they care about the CNCF. And, like, like And and this is why if you were having an argument about what's good for the community, like, obviously, it's not good for the community to lose all your committers. So that's bad. And, like, they're not making a choice about their community. Right?
Adam Jacob:They're making a choice about their foundation. And, like like, I from that point of view, like, the negotiated settlement here, like, I don't see how the CNCF could ever accept any settlement that allows that trademark to leave. And, like, if that means they pay Derek's legal fees, fine. Like like but but in the end, whether they actually have to do that or not, like, wow. Lots of discovery and timing and expense.
Adam Jacob:But, like, I don't I don't think that they're gonna be able to make a decision about the health of that community. I think they have to make it about the health of their foundation. And as an open source foundation, if what happens is they let people open source software and then take it back and not open source it anymore, you're not very much of an open source foundation. And I don't think that's
Bryan Cantrill:a choice they can I don't think it's a
Adam Jacob:choice they can make?
Bryan Cantrill:So let's talk about this fact because I I actually you mentioned this health check business, which apparently another process that the CNCF has to raise the alarm about the health of a community, which they have done, I think, in retribution to NATS. It's like concerned that the community is unhealthy, which to me goes to this whole kind of this this ridiculous facade that graduation denotes production readiness. And, I mean, I I think that I think the other the other possibility here, and I actually think this would be a good idea for the for the CNCF to do. I think that the CNCF should and Adam, if if I and I know you're a trademark maximalist and, you know, I know I'm I'm I'm getting kind of what's on the tin here, so I I I shouldn't complain. But the I I think that if you have a community that believes that they are not served by the CNCF and that community wants to go somewhere else, fine.
Bryan Cantrill:If the trademark has to reside at the CNCF, fine. The CNCF should facilitate that community's departure and should aid them. And because the to do any less reveals that the CNCF doesn't actually care about any of these communities.
Adam Jacob:Well, if they wanna if they if they want to They
Rachel Stephens:care about their end users too.
Adam Jacob:They but, like, yeah. What about the consumers? What about me, Brian?
Bryan Cantrill:I used is all sorry. The consumer is kind of already gonna be affected by this, I think.
Adam Jacob:Well, and but but what they could facilitate is the fork. Like, they can
Bryan Cantrill:Virtually facilitate the Yeah. That's only. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:They they they they can do an open tofu or
Adam Jacob:something like that. I mean, let's talk about how crazy it is. This is insane. An industry consortium decided to accept the fork of TerraForm. That's batshit.
Adam Jacob:Like, it just like, it boggles the mind that that is what happened. And, like, I see why the CNCF did it. But, like, woah. You know? The
Adam Leventhal:Because the the precedent is just like, I can hijack any software I want
Adam Jacob:Make software
Adam Leventhal:they want. Shove it in.
Adam Jacob:And I'll just and I'll just shove it into the CNCF, and now it's mine. So let's say you're successful at building a big thing. Now you've got another vector of attack, and that vector of attack is I did build a really successful project. I did do it all alone. I did do it with a minimal amount of contributors.
Adam Jacob:I did put all my own money into it. And you know what I got in return? I got the CNCF running the stable vendor neutral fork because they're the good stewards of open source. Like, you look like, danger rebounds. You know?
Adam Jacob:Yeah. Like, it's everywhere, and it's it's so ugly. That's all it's ugly everywhere. And yeah.
Bryan Cantrill:So, I mean, what mean,
Rachel Stephens:that's that's open source. Like, if you're building a permissive open source, then the the then you can build something that anyone can fork. Like
Adam Jacob:I know. And this is why HashiCorp shouldn't have relicensed, and they could have been a successful upstream, on and on and on. And, like like, I don't I'm not, you know, crying for HashiCorp about it. But, like, but as a as a piece of, like it's just evidence of how messy this whole thing actually is and how, like and one of the things that, you know, when Rachel, when you talked about liking all of the foundations and being the foundation like, I like some of the foundations because some of those foundations
Rachel Stephens:didn't mean that I like all of them. Sorry. Did I did I imply that I like all of them?
Adam Jacob:No. Maybe not. Maybe I just
Bryan Cantrill:want to make sure I take down the post. I'm sorry, Rickel. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:But, like, but,
Adam Jacob:like, you know, when when I'm looking at foundations where their where their purpose is the public interest like, let's say that this was an Apache project that wanted to leave like this. I don't I don't think, like, Apache's case for why they can't leave wouldn't be that because the consortium is so strong. It would be because it's not in the public interest. Right? Like, it's in the public interest that this thing remain open and not closed.
Adam Jacob:And I don't know how you make that, you know, the Free Software Foundation wouldn't even entertain it for the same basic fundamental reason. And, like, it comes back to the fact that open source has become so big, and it's become so it it becomes so watered down that, like, most of us don't have any moral center at all anymore about what it actually meant. And so this is how Brian and I wind up on opposite sides of a thing that we essentially fundamentally agree on really deeply. You know what I mean? Because, like like, the we're both I'm an open source maximalist too.
Adam Jacob:And, like, I think we've wound up in this spot where we've forgotten that these projects existed for a reason beyond the business, for a reason beyond the foundation, for a reason beyond vendor neutrality or free stuff. And and we have but we've failed to align our business models and our participation and our community standards and what we believe is right and wrong around that moral center. And instead, we wind up having this debate where it's like, well, I think the community should be able to leave because it's good for the people. And it's like, well, except for some of those people who it's bad for. You know?
Adam Jacob:And, like, we'll Yeah. That lack of a moral
Bryan Cantrill:I I think you've gotta have a process. I think you've gotta have a so I I'm I'm kinda I'm with you on, like again, if you if I grant you kind of trademark maximalism, I think it is in the CNCF's best interest to because I Rachel, I hear what you're saying about like, look, that's open source, baby. That's just the way it goes, man. Some projects get forked. It's nothing personal, which I think is actually fine.
Bryan Cantrill:I I I think that the but if we're gonna do that and I think actually honestly, and I've said this before that like one of the great strengths about Linux, Linux the kernel is that it was forkophilic rather than forkophobic. And Adam, I thought you I thought in Open Solaris back in the day, we made the mistake of really intense forkophobia, which necessitated more governance and we should have accommodated more forks earlier. And so I think that the CNCF should be as accommodating I think they should find new ways to become accommodating to forks because I think it is dangerous for the CNCF to say, you have an entire community that wants to leave us because they're underserved, and that's just tough shit.
Adam Jacob:And I think that's what they should have done. Like, the path the path the graceful path for the CNCF out of this is to facilitate a grace ful fork. Yeah. And to be grateful for all the work that they put in Yes. To be grateful for everything that they've done and to send them on their way with as much grace as they can.
Adam Jacob:And what they can't probably take with them is the name. And, you know, like, as a person who really disappointed a large community because I You
Bryan Cantrill:said take with us.
Adam Jacob:Thought they own. Oof. But that's what that that's the brakes.
Adam Leventhal:I think they
Bryan Cantrill:should rename the project to the Dodgers. What do think, Adam?
Adam Jacob:Don't For sure.
Adam Leventhal:Take that copyright. See if anyone's on it.
Bryan Cantrill:Oh.
Rachel Stephens:And but like, I okay. So like, my my job is to not like or dislike anything. My job is to just What's that job like?
Adam Leventhal:That's awful.
Rachel Stephens:I mean, I I I still have a lot of opinions about things. But, like, I think I think as you look at the open source foundations, it's like, depending on who you talk to. It's like, I I I talk to the foundations. I talk to the vendors. And it's like depending on who you speak to.
Rachel Stephens:Like, some of these organizations are, like, way too commercial or some of them are not commercial enough. Like, way too consensus oriented oriented. Some, like, not enough. Like, some we're too opinionated. Not enough.
Rachel Stephens:Like like, the spectrum's all over the place in terms of where people are. And so, like, I want to acknowledge. Like, I feel like we're in this call, and I I I just wanna acknowledge that this this whole event seems to be predicated on Sinadia, like, kind of taking a bad action, and then it kind of feels like we have spent, like, the last hour and a half kind of sitting on the CNCF. That feels a little rough to me because, like, it does feel to me like that was like like, I I don't want this to be, like, an anti foundation thing. Because I do think foundations serve a really important role.
Rachel Stephens:I do think that Yeah. I I do and I do think that Sineadia has been in a place where like, I I don't wanna say bad actor because that is a tough role, but I do think that they are the ones who took the predicating action.
Adam Jacob:I I mean, I'm a Sinadia customer. I like those people. In this moment, they're bad actors. If what you are is an open source user who is who cares about software freedom, who cares about open source in general, like, I don't I don't think it's wrong to say that they're bad actors. Here they are.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, so and I actually want And and I'm also Go ahead. Sorry. Hold on. Wanna Rich, go ahead. I
Rachel Stephens:And so like I but I do think as as somebody who I I think that's something that Red Monk in particular cares about a lot is I don't care in particular. Like, my I I don't have strong opinions about organizations. I don't have strong opinions about foundations. I do have really strong opinions about open source as just a general philosophy. Yeah.
Rachel Stephens:And moves like this are things that undermine open source a lot. And so, like, reading through some of these blog posts where we we confuse the term open source or we misuse the term open source or we pull the license out in a way that hurts users. Like, all of those things I think really deserve the community. And those things I think are troubling and hurt like, they just hurt the cause of the industry at large. And those are things that I struggle with.
Bryan Cantrill:So Rachel, I think in our collective role as marriage counselors for this this this this honestly rocky marriage between CNCF and Nats, I have a concrete recommendation for both of them that I that they of course won't take me up on. But one of the the the must watch talks that I've seen is your talk from Monctoberfest twenty twenty two, I think, on introspection gaps. Is that right? The and I would like, Adam, based kind of on that talk, I would correct you slightly when you say they're bad actors. I think we're seeing bad behavior.
Bryan Cantrill:And I think it is actually important for this not to become a full blown conflict, which again, I think is in no one's interest. And it will it will not act neither of these sides is going to prevail unequivocally and they're gonna spend a lot of money to arrive back at a juncture where they're both suing for peace because they're exhausted. And instead of that whole mess, watch Rachel's talk on introspection gaps. And and then I think they need to the CNCF and Nats, Sennadia, need to write down what are the fears that you have. Because there are there is fear at the root on both of these sides.
Bryan Cantrill:And and I think if they can like, what's work and and Rachel, I I just can't think enough and I know I've I've I've said this to you before, but that that talk is really important because it I I think so frequently the bad behavior that we do see in these communities is because of fear. And when you kind of can understand that, you can get a little more empathy for it despite my my rage about the cost curve and and it's apparently haven't gotten over that one. But the I I think if we could do that, we might be able to get to something that like, look, this is gonna be a divorce, but it but it is incumbent upon all sides to find a way to do it with the least amount of collateral damage possible. And I hope that they can sit down and figure out and kind of like get think bigger than themselves. And the because I think that there's I mean, Rachel, don't know what your take is, but I I actually think that there's there is a real disservice being done to foundations, to open source communities.
Bryan Cantrill:I think Adam, if there's one regret in all of this, it's that we didn't predict something like this happening. I feel like in in our because I feel like we've had like bad foundation behavior and bad open source behavior. It's like, how could we not predict like the mashup of the two of them? Yeah. We
Adam Leventhal:That's a big miss.
Rachel Stephens:I think it's
Bryan Cantrill:a big miss.
Adam Jacob:Everything you just said is very wise, Brian.
Rachel Stephens:Yes. And I mean, like, it's to all of them. Like, it's to foundations, to communities, to the enterprises relying on this. And honest, it's just an idiot. Like, I I want I want a good outcome for them too.
Rachel Stephens:Like, I I don't I do not wish ill upon them. Like, I I want them to have a successful company. I want the company that's backing a technology that we all rely on to have a successful business model. Like, I want that for them.
Adam Jacob:Yeah. Me too. They're my friends. Like, I like they're good people.
Bryan Cantrill:Well, okay. So that's like I think yeah. Would we I I I would be I I think in terms of of getting so these these folks should seek a mediator, and let's let's sit down and and get this resolved.
Rachel Stephens:And maybe a maybe a crisis PR firm on both sides.
Bryan Cantrill:Maybe a crisis for both sides. Do not
Adam Jacob:use people do not go to crisis PR fast enough. That's a for real truth.
Bryan Cantrill:You know, in addition to being my my accountant, my my lawyer, and my postmortem attorney, Adam is my my my crisis PR guy. He's good. He's he's Go help us. Yeah. Mainly Adam's crisis PR, which admittedly is very effective, is like, I I wouldn't post that.
Bryan Cantrill:That's that's what I'm saying. Or or or you're not posting that. Right?
Adam Jacob:I'm gonna say if he's telling you to be quiet, then he's doing the right thing.
Adam Leventhal:Generally good advice.
Bryan Cantrill:It's really good advice. Shut up. Alright. Well, great conversation. Thank you both so much for and, Eliza, thank you too.
Bryan Cantrill:I mean, again, I think, Eliza, your perspective is so important as someone who was actually working on a very important CNCF project. And I I, you know, I think even though on the one hand, great to have the content, but let's have fewer of these of these desktops piece if we can. But thank you all. Sarah Wynn Williams, thank you as always for joining us. Really appreciate you continuing to offer your unvarnished perspective.
Bryan Cantrill:Careless People, definitely pick it up now. Morris Chang, we still didn't get to you. I know Adam, are you gonna break the news to him? Because he was told him like this, look, this conversation is gonna go long. There's a lot to talk about.
Bryan Cantrill:We'll try to work you up on stage, but I know he's had his hand up here for a while. But Morris, just didn't have time to get to you.
Adam Leventhal:Yeah. Sorry, Morris. We'll we'll we'll try to get to you next week.
Bryan Cantrill:Next week. Alright. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks, Adam.
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