Distributed Linux Testing Platform KernelCI Secures Funding and Long-Term Sustainability as New Linux Foundation Project

LYON, France, Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Source Summit Europe -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the KernelCI testing platform is becoming a Linux Foundation project underwritten by BayLibre, Civil Infrastructure Platform, Collabora, Foundries.io, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat. As a Linux Foundation project, KernelCI will accelerate its work to test Linux on the largest variety of hardware platforms.

The Linux kernel is developed by a large, collaborative open source community working together to continuously improve the software. Conversely, Linux kernel testing is often fragmented since it is largely done in private silos with little collaboration on the testing software or methodologies. KernelCI is a community-based open source distributed test automation system focused on upstream kernel development. It was originally started in 2014 as a side project by a few engineers who were doing the testing at home and in their spare time. A variety of hardware labs contributed to the work over time, but until now there was no sustainable structure in place for open governance and contribution, or expanded access for the developers to hardware.

"Testing is traditionally done only on the most common hardware. But because Linux runs on more hardware than any other operating system, it's important to also test it on all that hardware. The Linux Foundation's support is enabling us to expand the great work we started five years ago and sets us up for a bright future with a growing community," said Kevin Hilman, co-founder of embedded Linux consultancy BayLibre and co-founder of the KernelCI project.

"KernelCI represents the passion and diligence we see among developers all over the world. The individuals who have given their nights and weekends to this work deserve our gratitude and support, and we're excited to be able to host this work at the Linux Foundation," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation.

The primary goal of KernelCI is to use an open testing philosophy to improve the quality, stability and long-term maintenance of the Linux kernel. Expected improvements to the platform under the Linux Foundation include improved LTS kernel testing and validation; consolidation of existing testing initiatives; quality-of-life improvements to the current service; expanded compute resources; and increased pool of hardware to be tested. In the long-term, members expect to modernize the architecture; test software beyond the Linux kernel; and define testing standards and engage in cross-project collaboration.

For more information or to contribute to this work, please visit: https://kernelci.org/

Comments
Civil Infrastructure Platform
"The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) aims to maintain Linux for decades and more. In times of ever-changing, dynamic software like the Linux kernel, this very challenging task is unthinkable without advanced testing strategies and infrastructure that can also navigate the intricacies of real hardware," said Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Mauerer, Senior Research Scientist at Siemens Corporate Technology and member of the CIP Technical Steering Committee. "The CIP project has long since relied on KernelCI for distributed, heterogeneous testing, and we are excited to see the development of KernelCI advance as a Linux Foundation project."

Collabora
"Provided how crucial Linux has become to society, achieving comprehensive test coverage of the Linux kernel is essential. By applying the open source philosophy to testing, the KernelCI distributed architecture enables the whole kernel community to collaborate around a single upstream CI system. Becoming part of the Linux Foundation shines the light on the progress we have made with KernelCI and enables the project to become an integral part of the Linux kernel development workflow," said Guy Lunardi, VP Business Development at Open Source software consultancy and leading KernelCI contributor Collabora.

Foundries.io
"At Foundries.io, we believe the latest software is the most secure software. That is why it is important to have a unified continuous integration project dedicated to the Linux kernel, which focuses on a broad range of architectures and hardware." said  Tyler Baker, CTO, Foundries.io. "This enables us and our customers to run the latest software with confidence. As co-founders of KernelCI, we are excited to help expand the reach of the project through continued contributions and guidance."

Microsoft
"At Microsoft, we believe in making Linux the best platform it can be for customers," said KY Srinivasan, general manager, Azure. "By securing funding and long-term sustainability for the KernelCI Testing platform, we're collaborating together to harden Linux for the broader Linux community."

Red Hat
"Red Hat invests in upstream projects like KernelCI to further scale the fundamental open source advantage offered by the 'Bazaar.' By facilitating engagement between Linux communities and partners earlier and more frequently, we're helping to enable rapid innovation while bringing the benefits of open technologies to the enterprise through the thousands of projects that comprise Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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SOURCE The Linux Foundation