Google maintains that the formation of its Open Usage Commons (OUC) group to initially house a trio of its projects – including the Istio service mesh – does not impact its ongoing commitment to already established open source groups like the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). However, significant concerns remain over how that controversial move will impact the service mesh space.

Chris DiBona, head of open source for Google and its parent company Alphabet, explained in an email to SDxCentral that the company remains committed to CNCF and other groups it participates in and that it’s not looking to compete with those efforts.

“Foundations do great work and the OUC is not trying to be a foundation like these, running conferences, etc.,” DiBona noted. “The launching of the Open Usage Commons should have no more impact on Google’s relationship with the CNCF than on any other group it funds and participates in.”

CNCF Director Priyanka Sharma said in an interview with SDxCentral that she did not expect the OUC formation to have any impact on CNCF’s relationship with Google.

“We really appreciate the collaboration that we've had with Google so far and expect that to continue,” Sharma said. “Kubernetes is a key part of the entire cloud computing ecosystem and Google is part of it. And we have important numbers from there and we expect to continue working with them.”

Google has had a tight relationship with CNCF as it was the donation of Google’s open source code that led to the development of the Kubernetes project. That project was the initial driver for CNCF’s success in becoming a generally agreed safe waystation for open source projects.

The most recent CNCF annual user survey found that Istio was the most popular service mesh either being used or considered for deployment. The survey found that 69% of respondents were interested in Istio.

While both parties are staying positive, others noted that Google’s move will have an impact on how the open source community views Google’s intentions moving forward.

“I do have deep concerns about the impact of this on the health of the community,” said Craig McLuckie, VP of VMware’s Modern Apps and Platform business unit. “I'm concerned that much of the promotion and growth of Istio was on the assumption that it was already part of CNCF. In fact, many people didn't even realize that Istio was not at this point. It’s going to be very challenging for this community to navigate just given that there are no signs around an intent to move it into open governance, and it was still not clear what Google's proposing actually meets the needs of the community from a trademark management perspective.”

McLuckie was also the original product lead for Google’s Compute Engine platform, co-founded the Kubernetes project, and created and chaired CNCF.

There also remains some confusion as to just what is being moved into the OUC.

DiBona reiterated that the only part of Istio moving into the newly formed group was the trademark, and that “the copyright and governance remains the same.”

“Neutral trademark management is critical to these open source projects,” DiBona explained. “And the answer warrants this new initiative to set a course for open source trademark stewardship. As such, the projects in the Open Usage Commons will receive support specific to trademark protection and management, usage guidelines, and conformance testing.”

However, some have pointed to a failed Google trademark application for the Istio name from last year, which appears to be causing some confusion over just what is being donated into the OUC.

McLuckie, who also called into question the exact ownership of the Istio name, explained that the trademark issue is not that important to the open source community, but is important for vendors that are looking “to produce commercial outcomes.”

“It’s absolutely critical that having access to a trademark that's in the free and clear effectively and that is being protected by a neutral body is key,” McLuckie said. “I don't yet know exactly how the structure is going to work. From what I've been given to understand I'm not sure that there is in fact a registered trademark associated with Istio.”

Specific to VMware, McLuckie said the vendor is approaching the issue with “eyes wide open as to what alternatives exist and whether they represent something that we would want to invest in significantly.” He added that while VMware was still working through what impact Google’s move will have on its own use of Istio, he did note that it was a “point of significant concern.”

Istio alternatives at the moment appear lean.

Sharma noted that CNCF does already host the Linkerd service mesh as an “incubating” project, and recently adopted the Service Mesh Interface (SMI) as a “sandbox” project. Linkerd was developed by Buoyant before being donated to CNCF in 2017, and is similar to Istio. Microsoft led the development of SMI, which acts as an abstraction for service mesh platforms.

“I certainly believe that we will likely see organizations start to engage with and promote alternative offerings that are run under an open governance framework,” McLuckie said. “I don't know whether Linkerd is going to be the connective tissue or something else will start to emerge, but I do think we'll see the community itself start to focus on alternatives.”