AWS Open Source Blog

Onwards! To the Year of Open Source

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What a year it has been! 2017 has been a year of steady progress for open source at AWS. We saw marked open source transformation and code contributions driving some big wins for open source engagement.

As we continued to grow our open source team through the year, we also created new channels of communication for all things open from AWS and across Amazon. Through our website opensource.amazon.com, we’re making it easier for everyone to see what AWS is doing to grow the code base, what the community is doing, and looking for opportunities to collaborate. Our open source blog and our social feeds including @AWSOpen on Twitter are abuzz with activity showcasing open source contributions from across the company. WIth over 300 GitHub repositories published in 2017, check out our code and participate on aws.github.io.

We’ve made great strides in joining and actively engaging in key open source foundations including the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and Apache Software Foundation (ASF) as well as core open source conferences like the Open Source Conference (OSCON), KubeCon and the Open Source Summits.

We’re expanding our open source programs and have shared our best practices and the tools we use to track and measure our code contributions. We’d love your feedback.

Throughout the year, we joined customers to showcase their open source projects like Spinnaker from Netflix and CloudCustodian from CapitalOne. At re:Invent, earlier this November, Adrian Cockcroft and I spoke about open source at AWS; the communities we are working with, what we are doing to improve code, growing the number of contributions we make, and where we collaborate. If you missed the presentation, you’ll find it here, along with around twenty open source sessions and workshops.

The end of the year presents an opportunity for reflection, predictions, and resolutions for the new year.

2018 is the year of open source. It marks the 20th anniversary of open source, and of founding organizations like the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and events like OSCON. There will be sharing of stories and celebration throughout the year. I recall the excitement at OSCON in 2000 in Monterey, California, when my first open source project, OpenOffice.org was announced. Looking back, the last 20 years in open source have been exciting. The collaboration with communities was incredibly rewarding, and more now that open source software is everywhere.

As we move into the year of open source, I predict much more collaboration around code with customers, collaboration with open source communities and foundations, contributors from AWS and Amazon sharing at open source and technology events, meetups and hackathons. You’ll see even more projects released on aws.github.io and stories shared through opensource.amazon.com. You will hear from the AWS engineers, technologists and advocates around the world as we share open source best practices, as well as collaborate on projects like Kubernetes, Amazon FreeRTOS, Apache MXNet, AWS Amplify and many more.

Keep watching this space! I’m excited at the opportunities to meet more of the community, for working together and the collaboration ahead. Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a fruitful 2018.

Please follow @AWSOpen or visit our web site at opensource.amazon.com to keep up to date on open source at AWS.

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Zaheda Bhorat

Zaheda Bhorat

Zaheda Bhorat is part of the Open Source team at AWS. She has been instrumental in growing the AWS Open Source team and contributions. A computer scientist, Zaheda has held many open source and technology leadership roles for over twenty years. She was one of the co-creators of Google's Open Source Program Office and several successful programs including Summer of Code. She also brings a deep understanding in open standards from her work as head of open standards at Google, and as senior technology advisor for Government Digital Services, UK Cabinet Office. Here she drove policy for the adoption of open document formats. At Sun Microsystems, she led the project and the global community responsible for the success of OpenOffice.org and NetBeans.org. At Apple, she managed the EMEA and APAC online service teams. She serves on the UK Government Open Standards Board, and the Mifos Initiative board, where she combines her passion for technology, open source and social good. You can find her on Twitter @zahedab.