Announcing OpenShift Origin – Open Source Code For Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

It's been almost a year to the date since Red Hat launched the OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) at Red Hat Summit. Since launch, OpenShift has established itself as a compelling PaaS choice for developers seeking enterprise capabilities.

The OpenShift PaaS comes with a host of developer-friendly capabilities like MongoDB, Node.js, easy command-line and web interfaces, the ability for developers to plug in their own frameworks as well as comprehensive enterprise Java capability from being the first PaaS to offer Java EE6 to integration with JBoss Tools and other eclipse-based IDEs alongside Maven and Jenkins automation. The adoption of the OpenShift platform and community continues to grow.

The OpenShift platform has come this far by riding on many open source projects and the communities around them. From day one, we always knew that for the OpenShift service to continue to grow and thrive, the source code for it had to be released, and developed by a community. Well, that day has come.

We're stoked to announce the release of OpenShift Origin, the open source codebase used in the OpenShift PaaS, and also the name for the community and project. OpenShift Origin is intended to serve as the upstream for code and enhancements for Red Hat's OpenShift PaaS service -- but that's not all:

OpenShift Origin will be run as a true open source project. Taking lessons-learned from Fedora, JBoss and the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), OpenShift Origin looks to be unique among PaaS projects in that:

• It is a meritocratic community project, regardless of developer affiliation. Read about the OpenShift Origin process.

• The codebase is licensed under the Apache License, v2, which enables a wide audience of users, developers and vendors.

The reasons for the above are clear: The cloud in general, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and PaaS implementations specifically, should not be vehicles that promote vendor lock-in, nor should they be under the control or “guidance” of vendors. For the cloud to remain open and vibrant, implementations should be truly open, not only in license, but in governance. The OpenShift Origin project sets a high bar for PaaS offerings, developed and governed by developers, for developers.

The benefits available to the developer are numerous:

• Run a PaaS locally on your laptop

• Run a PaaS behind your firewall

• Become a developer on a PaaS and expand your skills and solve interesting technical problems

• Integrate your middleware or framework into an open source PaaS

• Create a new thing based on PaaS technology

• By utilizing an open source IaaS codebase, build a cloud stack using open source

The OpenShift Origin project will use GitHub as its code repository, with mailing lists and other support services (such as bug trackers) provided by Red Hat.

Are you ready to download, contribute and participate? Then go to the “Get Involved” page and join the OpenShift Origin community. We've made it easy to get started! We've put together an OpenShift Origin Fedora Remix to make getting up and running relatively painless. In addition, OpenShift Evangelist Mark Atwood has put together a blog post that walks you through what the different OpenShift Origin components are and how to get up and running. He also wrote a blog about the relationship between OpenShift Origin and OpenStack. Now that’s a complete open source cloud stack right on your laptop!
 

Are you interested in learning more about OpenShift Origin? Check out the OpenShift Origin sessions at the Open Cloud Conference this week. You can also catch us in May at Cloud DC or Silicon Valley OpenShift Meetup to learn more.

OpenShift Origin is ready to be your open source PaaS.

You have our word on it.