Mary Writes

Why a Linux distro becoming a CNCF project matters

The Stack

November 17, 2025

Mary Branscombe's avatar
Mary Branscombe
12mo

I was fascinated when I noticed a Linux distro going to the CNCF because it's such a different level from other projects: digging into it with @brendandburns.bsky.social @castrojo.bsky.social and @cpswan.net it quickly became obvious what a good fit for cloud native Flatcar is

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Flatcar is getting widely adopted. Adobe runs it on over 20,000 nodes of its internal Ethos Kubernetes platform across multiple cloud providers and private data centres...


https://www.thestack.technology/why-a-linux-distro-becoming-a-cncf-project-matters/
Mary Branscombe's avatar
Mary Branscombe
12mo

that shouldn't be a surprise with Flatcar's history (fun to reminisce about) but it's also interesting how natural a home Microsoft has become for projects like this and the move to is open, vendor neutral governance about much more than reassuring folks who may be mistrustful of Microsoft

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Flatcar is getting widely adopted. Adobe runs it on over 20,000 nodes of its internal Ethos Kubernetes platform across multiple cloud providers and private data centres...


https://www.thestack.technology/why-a-linux-distro-becoming-a-cncf-project-matters/
Mary Branscombe's avatar
Mary Branscombe
12mo

The huge work of adding a GPL project to CNCF is a great example of a healthy role large vendors can play in open foundations but maybe the big thing is how important open governance is for delivering extra levels of security and assurance are becoming so critical (assuming CISA survives!)

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters

Flatcar is getting widely adopted. Adobe runs it on over 20,000 nodes of its internal Ethos Kubernetes platform across multiple cloud providers and private data centres...


https://www.thestack.technology/why-a-linux-distro-becoming-a-cncf-project-matters/

One of the reasons I like hearing back from readers is that I sometimes catch myself thinking that if I could figure it out, surely they already have...

Mary Branscombe's avatar
Mary Branscombe
12mo

thanks! honestly, once I started digging into it, Flatcar seemed such a perfect match for containers that I started worrying that it almost wasn't worth writing, and then I reminded myself that I didn't know *why* it was such a good fit before I went and learned about it!

Flatcar is getting widely adopted. Adobe runs it on over 20,000 nodes of its internal Ethos Kubernetes platform across multiple cloud providers and private data centres...
Why Linux distro Flatcar becoming a CNCF project matters
Flatcar is getting widely adopted. Adobe runs it on over 20,000 nodes of its internal Ethos Kubernetes platform across multiple cloud providers and private data centres...
https://www.thestack.technology/why-a-linux-distro-becoming-a-cncf-project-matters/
  • open source

  • Linux

  • Kubernetes

  • containers

  • CNCF

  • Microsoft

  • open source licences

  • governance

  • Flatcar

Subscribe to Mary Writes
to get updates in Reader, RSS, or via Bluesky Feed
NATS: The event bus that tries to have it all
Do you want to run your own registry – and is Harbor the solution?