How to be Successful when Donating a Project to the CNCF with Liz Rice

The Business of Open Source

Today on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Liz Rice, Chief Open Source Officer at Isovalent, which is now part of Cisco. We addressed two subjects: How to be successful as a company that donates their project to the CNCF, and the story of Isovalent’s acquisition by Cisco and the role open source played in that acquisition.

We talked about:

• Trademarks. This is a very important part of what you donate when you donate a project to the CNCF (or other foundations). We talked about what you can and can not do with the name and logo of “your” project when it becomes part of the CNCF, and what that means for the competitive landscape you’re a part of.
• How to best take advantage of the marketing benefits that being part of the CNCF brings.
• How to create a link between the CNCF project and the company that donated it.
• The role that Cilium and eBPF played in Isovalent’s acquisition by Cisco.
• Why Isovalent’s relationship with open source is valuable to Cisco in and of itself.
• How open source companies can increase the likelihood that they’ll be able to continue investing in open source post-acquisition.
• Why it’s so important to find opportunities for collaboration.

Want help making the link between your CNCF project and your commercial product? You might want to work with me.