The Red Hat community commitment to open source

The increasing adoption of open source software underscores its tremendous value and impact. According to Gitnux, 78% of businesses use open source technologies, and about 96% of current applications contain at least one open source component. Developers also recognize the value of open source software in enhancing their skill sets and enabling them to collaborate on projects that push technological boundaries.

Red Hat is the world’s largest open source company and a leading contributor to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). We strive to develop products and technologies that advance both the open source community and the digital landscape.

Our extensive range of open source solutions encompasses operating systems, middleware, storage, container services, and developer tools and products like Red Hat Developer Hub, Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift, etc. We also create and contribute to numerous communities and projects while upholding the core values that drive open source innovation. These communities foster an ecosystem where developers and nontechnical individuals can collaborate, provide and access mentorship, and create top-tier products using open source technology.

Read on to explore our approach to open source and learn about the projects and contributions advancing our technological landscape.

Red Hat open source approach

Red Hat’s decades-long commitment to open source software includes an open development model. This model connects engineers with broader communities, facilitating the creation of secure, reliable products that consistently challenge conventional boundaries.

We’ve also founded several upstream communities, providing support beyond code contribution, participation, and engagement. We integrate with other upstream projects to develop commercialized, industry-standard projects within a service-rich ecosystem. This open development approach lowers application development costs and enhances the security of our products.

Most recently, we introduced Red Hat Developer Hub, an internal portal packed with tools that expedite development processes. Building on Backstage, a CNCF project, Developer Hub helps create and customize developer portals and offers numerous Backstage plug-ins. These plug-ins include Keycloak for authorization and authentication and Topology for visualizing real-time workload health in Kubernetes.

Red Hat Developer Hub offers several advantages, including:

• Improved work efficiency: Developer Hub contains all the tools developers and teams require, from clusters and templates to integrated development environments (IDEs), GitHub repos, and documentation. This integrated environment saves time configuring and switching between tools and programs. Less distraction means greater freedom to innovate and shortened time to deployment.
• Reduced knowledge barriers via self-service: Developer Hub contains Golden Path templates, a collection of pre-architected, well-defined steps for building software without in-depth knowledge of all the required components. This feature softens the knowledge barrier, enabling developers to build secure, scalable, and efficient tools.

Red Hat currently occupies the CNCF’s number-one contributor spot, boasting over 550,000 contributions to projects like Docker, Kubernetes, Prometheus, and other cloud technologies. Our accessible cloud-native technology helps countless organizations and individuals to build and manage scalable, flexible, robust applications in the cloud.

Red Hat open source projects

In addition to Developer Hub, Red Hat’s open source projects include:

• Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces: Built on the open Eclipse Che project, this tool provides a consistent, secure, zero-configuration integrated development environment (IDE) to write, run, and debug applications without downloading development tools locally. It allows developers with little Kubernetes knowledge to run containerized applications in-browser on OpenShift.
• Podman and Podman Desktop: This daemonless open source pod manager uses a command-line interface  (CLI) and the libpod library to manage and run containers running on Linux systems. Podman’s daemonless architecture makes it more accessible to users and less susceptible to root-account-level infiltration and attacks.
• OpenShift GitOps: This OpenShift add-on uses Argo as a controller, allowing development teams to implement GitOps for workflow and cluster management. Argo monitors application configurations defined in a Git repository and reports any deviation from their configured state.
• Tekton: Tekton is a Kubernetes-native framework built on Red Hat OpenShift for developing continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) systems. Tekton pipeline tasks are loosely coupled, promoting reuse across multiple projects.

We support these tools through Developer Hub, arming developers with accessible, integrated tools to build other open source downstream tools, further illustrating the impact of open source. 

Red Hat open source community

Red Hat prioritizes its upstream communities, which collaborate under industry standards to create enterprise-level software solutions. Noteworthy communities include:

• Janus: Janus provides access to developer portals, plug-ins, and service catalogs, helping software engineers create functional, reliable, and flexible applications.
• Open Studio: This community includes a collection of strategists, developers, writers, designers, animators, and audio producers. All work within and outside of Red Hat, and all are committed to amplifying Red Hat’s principles and creative voice. Open Studio recognizes the value of storytelling in relating the impact of the open source model. It spotlights real user stories, organizes educational and vocational events, and documents every step of its creative process using open source technologies.
• Ceph: This upstream community supports Red Hat Data Services like Red Hat Ceph Storage and Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation, benefitting from the collaborative efforts of its contributors. These communities create a diverse ecosystem that fosters skill development and provides access to networking opportunities through mentoring and event sponsorships.

Developers can contribute to community projects’ source codes by sharing bug fixes, updates, feature enhancements, and documentation. Additionally, communities like Janus produce industry-standard tools, providing developers with low-cost, secure, and integrated solutions that expedite development timelines. 

The power of open source

Red Hat believes in the power of open source and the communities that drive the movement. Our open development model relies on and facilitates collaboration for building and maintaining software, so developers can get involved and help solidify the future of open source as a technology mainstay. 

Are you looking to contribute and build your skills? Join the Red Hat open source community today by signing up for the Red Hat Developer program.