 Hi, this is your Saptal Bhartiya and welcome to another episode of Tfile. Let's talk today. We have with us Wes Wilson, VP of Operations at Open Infra Foundation. Yes, it's great to have you on the show. Thanks, thanks for having me. You were recently promoted to the role of VP of Operations. You have been with the foundation for a very long time. And a lot of things have changed in all these years. You know, foundation has been on for about 10, 11, 12 years. Things have changed. So, since you recently moved to a new role, so I want to hear from you. What do you see? What is Open Infra Foundation in today's world where, you know, things are more and more. I remember the days of, you know, open, open stack, you know, foundation. You're talking about, you know, thousands of cores at certain and all those things. Now, everybody is moving to cloud. Everybody is kind of embracing that. So, first of all, what is Open Infra Foundation in today's cloud-centric world and what role you folks are playing in helping organizations embrace cloud? Yeah, so, as you know, being in the community, the OpenStack Foundation was created specifically to support the OpenStack software at the time. I mean, that was needed and it obviously is paid off. The OpenStack software is, you know, in 40 million plus cores around the world. And, you know, it's really defined like what open source infrastructure is. But since then, you know, the landscape has changed quite a bit. Use cases have changed. You know, now we're needing infrastructure for cases like Edge and AI. And so that's really how we have evolved as a foundation. So we are still obviously focusing on OpenStack. It's still a huge part of what we do. You know, our most recognized project and one that we spend a lot of energy on. But we're also looking at the additional use cases and how we can support, you know, open source infrastructure, you know, being such a big component around the world. Let's also talk about, you know, your role as you have taken over the role of VP of operation. What does that mean for you, your day-to-day operations? At the same time, what does it mean for the foundation? What are the things that you will be focusing on? It's a massive role. So as you mentioned, I started over eight years ago at the foundation and I've worn a ton of hats, which sort of suits me. I've done everything from web and design to product management and marketing. And so I've had the chance to sort of fill a lot of seats over the past year. So I've been working on building our project hosting framework, which is something that we have been talking about a lot lately. And that piece in particular covers everything from, you know, open source strategy to finance, to legal pieces, trademark, all that stuff. And so I've really had a chance to dive into all those pieces. And that's really what suited me for this VP of operations role. So still wearing lots of hats in this role, it's just a little more official now and getting a chance to work more deeply on providing value to our members. Any specific initiative that either you are driving or that is under work at the foundation? As I mentioned, this project hosting framework is the big one. It's called OpenIP for Project Funds. That is one, you know, we, going back a little bit in the conversation, we're talking about moving from OpenStack to focusing more on open source infrastructure as a whole. We started hosting other projects a few years ago through our main fund. So like Cota Containers, for example, StarlingX. These are projects that are in the infrastructure space that we support. But what we've been hearing a lot from our members is that they wanted a way to more directly support and fund projects. So instead of all the funds coming in to the main foundation and then being sort of divvied up from there, they were looking for a way to more directly support those things. So that's why the project funds came to be. Can you explain what do you really mean? Is it like, you know, just the way there are other foundations where, you know, there's one umbrella foundation and within there, they have all the projects. But then there are foundations within foundation where, you know, those other projects, they manage their own marketing, they manage their own funding, they manage their own teams. So is this what we're talking about? It's very similar. Yeah. So basically a project fund can be specific for one specific project. So in other words, if you have a set of organizations that come together, they want to focus on one specific project, they would basically set up a legal entity for them. We would help them form governance and then they would have a separate budget that they would then allocate towards that project. And that can happen towards a single project or like you mentioned, more of an umbrella foundation under the setup. So these kind of, you know, sub projects will have their own, you know, autonomous projects where they will have their own governance model, they will have their own community. So it, I mean, of course, Open Infra Foundation will provide kind of the basic infrastructure and all the resources, but they will be able to manage their own projects. Is that correct? Yeah, that's exactly right. And so really that's one of the reasons that we created these is so that we could help facilitate, you know, those communities more directly. So yeah, they will be able to support that. And obviously we will have the opportunity to pull them into our, you know, already existing network of open infrastructure providers and users and operators. Can you give some examples where this is in very early phase or there are already some projects which are, you know, part of this initiative already? We are in an early phase. We did talk about this at our last summit, mostly for the fact that we're going down this path and we've spent the past year working to operationalize the process. So we do have some projects that we are discussing right now about moving this in. But we, and there's potential of announcing these at the opening for summit coming up in Vancouver, but probably not at a good spot to talk about those just yet. What happens is sometimes as companies today, they do like open source, but sometimes they are hesitant, sometimes they don't feel very comfortable or confident in company-owned open source projects because companies you have also seen, they change the license. So foundations play a very big critical role in kind of not only creating an even playing field, but also making companies comfortable with open source. So talk about with this new initiative where you're funding the project, how it will accelerate that not adoption is already there, but where companies also like because once you put something in open infrastructure, once again, the thing is that, hey, you know, big resources, you might get a little chunk of your funds depending on what it is. But now you might get the dedicated resources depending on what resources you're bringing in. So how it will further accelerate this adoption of folks, you know, releasing their current open source for, you know, just cloud projects? Yeah, no, it's a good question. So, I mean, primarily what we offer, like you said, we're a neutral ground for it. So we are able to take on the IP, the trademark pieces and put them in a place to where it can't be, you know, taken advantage of by one of the organizations. And then we also through our governance structures and through just our model and our philosophy, our four opens and our three forces philosophy that we've developed through, you know, growing open stack create an environment that just makes it productive and easier for multiple organizations to collaborate together to focus on, you know, the true work at hand, which is developing and improving the software that they care about. Do you also have any kind of lifecycle of the maturity of the prey because some projects come in a very early phase. They are not ready for productions, but as the community grows, so do you also have any such plans for the maturity or evolution of the projects also, which will be part of this initiative? We in the past have had basically a lifecycle, which is a pilot projects and confirmed projects, which is what we currently have under the current funds. And we absolutely would have the opportunity to do that for each one of these project funds. But we have the framework set up in a way that allows the organizations that come in to work together to work with us, obviously helping guide them and that to develop the life cycle that works best for their communities and their projects. So, you know, some instances we've talked to organizations that are looking to looking for our support for projects that are very mature and others they're looking for support for projects that are, you know, just getting off the ground. So, you know, we really have the opportunity to support the gamut of ranges. If there is, you know, company organizations, which is, you know, thinking of releasing a project, why should they look at opening for a foundation? Sure. No, it's a good question and you're right. There are options. I think there's a couple of things. First, you know, is our focus. We really just focus on the infrastructure layer of things. That's our sweet spot. That's what we understand. Obviously with OpenStack being there, we have a pretty significant network that we could tap into in that layer as well. And then just given our focus, we're obviously we're going to have, you know, I don't foresee us having, you know, thousands or even hundreds of projects coming in. So I would say with that, you know, we're able to put a lot more attention on the individual projects or project funds that would come in. And then finally, like I mentioned before, we just we have a model that we are very proud of that we that we know works really well in creating a really open and transparent environment for working in open source, which, you know, the four opens and three forces, which if anybody's familiar with OpenStack, they've probably heard those terms before. Since, you know, you mentioned the upcoming event open, the summit is there in Vancouver. These events in person events also play a very big role in bringing the community together. But again, what role will these events play for these projects? Will like like there is a project, as you said, there will not be hundreds of projects. But who knows, but let's say there are projects that are growing. So maybe they want to do something which is because their community is big. So can there also be a possibility of having dedicated days or dedicated sessions for those specific projects? Or maybe who knows, there'll be a dedicated, you know, even just for that project. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's the way that we've we've structured these project funds in particular. We create the opportunity for that and really hope that we get to that point with these projects and expect that we will. So we've structured them similar to basically the process that we went along in developing and growing the community with OpenStack. We're creating the opportunity to do that with other projects as well. So yeah, if the moment comes where they want to have their individual community days events, that's definitely a possibility. If they wanted to having their own summits at that scale, that's a possibility as well. When companies, you know, when they have a project and they start thinking about releasing that project into any foundation, they have a lot of questions. At what stage do you forget involved? Because sometimes they need a lot of help before they even plan to release a project. Sometimes, as you said, as the project mature, then they also need a lot of help for the maturity of the project. So if there are organizations who are at what stage you get involved or what kind of resources you make available for them. So because there's a lot of legal framework in the wall, IPs they have to care about, they have clean up a lot of code. So talk about how do you help them in bringing their projects to OpenServFoundation? Where we get involved, I think, just depends on where the project is overall. We have the ability to get involved very, very early or very late. I would say the one caveat to that is that we really focus on, you know, wanting software to go into production. So I guess our main goal is to make sure that the foundations or the project funds that we set up are, you know, there is real software behind them. We're not, you know, interested in creating sort of like shells. So as far as like what we can do to help, you know, we've got a ton of experience and expertise and they put a lot of time into this framework, both on the legal aspects and just as far as like helping guide these organizations to create like the most collaborative and productive environments together. So yeah, everything from helping guide with branding through the trademark pieces, through governance establishment, both the funding governance through the project funds or the technical governance. Yeah, those are all the pieces that we'd love to be involved in. If you look at the OpenInfo, OpenStack, you know, adoption, it's a lot globally. Europe, you know, a lot of, you know, big telcos that are embracing it. In Asia, China, there's a lot, you know, Japan, a lot of adoption is happening. We are seeing in Europe a lot of, you know, from the public sector, a lot of initiatives are coming in which is in terms of open source. But the challenge is that it looks like, you know, as much as the policy makers want to do a good thing, they still have a not very good understanding of how open source work. Since your presence in this area, will you also be getting involved in a way to help public sector to kind of understand and have right policies there? Yeah, I mean, as far as the extent, I think that's still to be determined, but we definitely have plans of getting more involved on a global scale. That's some things that we hope to talk about soon, particularly at the summit as well. But yeah, that's one of our goals this year in particular moving forward is to help bridge some of those gaps globally. Our membership base is all over the world. We have users and developers, you know, and I think it's 180-plus countries or something like that. Like it's, you know, our reach is pretty massive. So I think we're in a unique position to be able to help with some of those problems. There are many foundations which are there where you see, hey, you know, we have to come together to kind of educate the lawmakers or you feel that, hey, you know, it's very early. I think it's important. I mean, it's not a zero-sum game, right? I mean, this is open sources, you know, it's global. And, you know, we've talked before, but we try to create the opportunity to collaborate without boundaries. And so that's, you know, both geopolitically and then also across foundations. So yeah, we have done some collaborative work with other foundations and, you know, like our and also across other open source organizations. For example, our general manager, Therese, is on the board for OSI, for example. So yeah, we're always looking for opportunities to collaborate, both with other foundations and other organizations to help bridge some of those gaps. Yes, thank you so much for taking time out today and share offers, you know, congratulations on your new role and share all these, you know, the new initiatives to fund projects to help, you know, others project the world within the foundation. And I would love to have you back on the show. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.