Container Linux project update
nick.s...@coreos.com
We’d like to give an update on the post-acquisition plans for Container Linux, now that the dust around integration has settled. Red Hat has issued a press release about our container host strategy, including how Red Hat will combine the best parts of Container Linux and Atomic Host to serve modern container use-cases. Container Linux will be fully maintained by Red Hat into 2020, and users can expect the same attention to automated updates, backwards compatibility, and security fixes that they have always enjoyed.
We continue to reliably deliver Container Linux: existing Container Linux nodes will not fall over, automatically update into another operating system, or otherwise stop serving their workloads.
The container ecosystem has evolved many times over since Container Linux nodes first hit the cloud in 2013. As we take stock of some component technologies, some, like Ignition, immediately fill a niche in the broader cloud operating system ecosystem and will continue active development. The automatic, transactional update model also will be preserved, although the implementation will likely change away from Update Engine. We are actively working on integrating some management tools around updates.
Development on these technologies, initially focused on bringing automated operations to OpenShift, will eventually lead to the successor to the Container Linux project. Our goal is to preserve the user experience and core value proposition that Container Linux first pioneered, although some of the components will be sufficiently different than Container Linux and require new node provisioning (i.e. Container Linux won’t in-place-update into this operating system).
Red Hat and the Container Linux team share a deep commitment to open source and serving the container-focused use-cases that made Container Linux the go-to operating system for container workloads. We’ll update this list with meaningful progress, otherwise, we’ll keep this list focused on Container Linux, business as usual.