Mirantis Launches Open Source Program Office to Double Down on Community Contribution

Long-time open source advocate Randy Bias to lead expansion of open source initiatives

CAMPBELL, Calif., July 24, 2024 - Mirantis, providing organizations with total control over their strategic infrastructure using open source software, today announced acceleration of its open source strategy and investment, positioning open source initiatives under a new Open Source Program Office and hiring Randy Bias as vice president, Open Source Strategy and Technology.

Mirantis already supports several open source projects (including k0s, k0smotron, and Lagoon), maintains several more, and contributes to Kubernetes, and more. Here is more information about the 25 open source projects where Mirantis is actively involved.

"Open source has always been the core of Mirantis' business and the key to delivering transformative cloud technologies that empower our customers with the flexibility to set their own direction," said Alex Freedland, CEO, Mirantis. "The office, led by Randy, will be dedicated to shaping contributions that matter."

"Mirantis has been instrumental in the success of the OpenStack project over the years and the team continues as a strong advocate for openly developed software," said Thierry Carrez, general manager of the Open Infrastructure Foundation. "We congratulate Mirantis on the establishment of their OSPO and look forward to the innovation that Mirantis' collaboration with and investment in the community can deliver."

The Open Source Program Office will focus on fostering community involvement and engagement through strategic open source projects. Bias will be responsible for ensuring greater transparency in Mirantis' open source engagement, and providing internal and external reporting to hold Mirantis accountable as a responsible open source citizen.

“More and more, businesses are relying on open source to drive their critical infrastructure,” said Bias. “Open source has always been foundational to Mirantis, and we recognize the need for a deeper investment and commitment to communities that are strategic to us. Mirantis is reinvesting and hiring in engineering teams that will focus exclusively on open source contributions and community development.”

A veteran of open source and cloud computing, Bias has been involved with several era-defining open source projects and companies. He was an early leader in the OpenStack community, serving as an inaugural director of the OpenStack Foundation (now OpenInfra) and board member from 2012-2014. He also served on the board of Linux Foundation Networking, and led the Tungsten Fabric project that today has evolved to OpenSDN. Bias founded the open cloud computing company Cloudscaling, which was acquired by EMC in 2014 where Bias subsequently drove EMC's first open source product release.

"I know Randy as an amazing open source advocate and evangelist, and am looking forward to seeing Randy further Mirantis's already deep commitment to the community," said Brian Behlendorf, chief AI strategist for the Linux Foundation.