Supporting Open Source Is A Privilege
I was particularly happy to see NetApp well represented in a recent paper describing contributions to the Linux kernel. NetApp is in the top twenty companies contributing code to the Linux kernel - much of it through our support of the Linux NFS Client. I got involved personally in getting NetApp more involved in Linux kernel development as our customers in 1999 started to increasingly use Linux in their data center operations. What I love about the Linux community and the people that comprise it is their openness to contributions - both bug fixes and significant feature enhancements.
NetApp has a long history of using open source, and I firmly believe that the use of open source should be followed by investing in the communities developing it. Indirectly, our membership in The Linux Foundation is part of that support. In the past, we've directly funded separate programs for NFS testing and SAN attach scalability in Linux through The Linux Foundation.
We use parts of FreeBSD in our products, and we're trying to support the work of that community also. Again, direct code contributions from our developers is our greatest contribution in my mind. But donations to organizations is also important - with a lot of these contributions coming from my CTO Office - such as our support for the FreeBSD Foundation (gotta check into status of our 2008 donation I notice!). Being a storage company we've found that sometimes providing highly reliable storage for development activities is the best way to help out some projects.
It is a privilege to be able to give back to these communities - important not only to NetApp but more importantly to our customers.
And personally, I enjoy the time I spend with the open source developers. Always engaging. And while I'm definitely not trying to start an open source war, my personal experience is that the Linux community does really know how to celebrate. I'm looking forward to the next Linux Kernel Summit! (And where are we with the sponsorship on that this year? Another thing to check up on:-)
