The Open networking foundation (ONF) is merging its portfolio of open source networking projects into the Linux Foundation (LF) as independent projects.

Founded in 2011, ONF has been the driving force behind many open source innovations in SDN, network disaggregation, and network programmability. The ONF open source project portfolio includes the SEBA reference platform for broadband access networks, the VOLTHA platform for controlling passive optical networks, the Aether initiative for private 5G and edge computing, SD-RAN for open radio access networks, and P4 for programming network data planes.

The move to the Linux Foundation is occurring for a number of reasons.

“ONF's project portfolio has grown to the point where we have three large independent project areas that are each successful in their own right,” ONF GM Timon Sloane told SDxCentral.

Sloane said that each of these projects has committed stakeholders, but each stakeholder cares about a specific project and very few stakeholders are committed to more than one of the projects. He noted that with growth over time the ONF membership, structure was found to be very limiting.

“ONF determined that the time was right to create separate memberships for the projects in order to give the stakeholders more specific say in the project they care about, and the ONF board decided that making this structural change in collaboration with LF would bring the best of the two worlds together,” Sloane said. “LF is best at creating and supporting open community-led open source projects, while ONF is best at running projects where stakeholders collectively fund engineering resources to work on the project.”

How the ONF project will now work inside of the Linux Foundation

As part of this merger, three new directed projects are being created under the Linux Foundation.

LF Broadband will support the ONF's broadband projects including VOLTHA and SEBA. The Aether effort will handle ONF's 5G mobile networking projects. Finally the P4 effort will handle ONF's P4 network programming related projects.

“We've collaborated to blend the two models together by creating three new projects under LF while leveraging the ONF's operating model within each project,” Sloane said. “This positions the projects for continued growth and while serving the distinct needs of each community. Sloane emphasized that technical governance of each project stays the same, but new governing boards have been created to direct the budget and guild each of the three new projects.”

Goodbye ONF, that name is being retired

With the migration to the Linux Foundation one key thing that is changing is that the ONF name and brand are going away.

“The ONF name is being retired in preference for giving each of the projects their own distinct runway moving forward,” Sloane said. “We want it to be clear that the projects are not tied together as they were under ONF.”

Though the former ONF projects are being merged into the Linux Foundation, they are not being merged into the Linux Foundation's networking organization known as LF Networking (LFN).

“These new projects are new independent LF projects, separate from LFN,” Sloane said. “However, we will be leveraging the obvious synergies with LFN and other LF projects moving forward, and together we will be creating more complete and robust end-to-end open networking solutions.”