Linux Foundation Announces OpenSearch Software Foundation to Foster Open Collaboration in Search and Analytics

AWS transfers OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation to support a vendor-neutral community for search, analytics, observability, and vector database software

VIENNA, Sept. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced the launch of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, a community-driven initiative that will support OpenSearch and its search software, which is used by developers around the world to build search, analytics, observability, and vector database applications. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, the OpenSearch Software Foundation will work with community maintainers and developers, as well as founding member organizations, to support the continued growth of OpenSearch.

Established in 2021 and previously hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenSearch has recorded more than 700 million software downloads and participation from thousands of contributors and more than 200 project maintainers. With the launch of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, AWS has transitioned OpenSearch under the Linux Foundation. The OpenSearch Software Foundation will focus on supporting OpenSearch as it continues to be adopted by organizations around the world to power business-critical workloads. As a part of the Linux Foundation family of open source projects, OpenSearch and its community will benefit from deep resources for programming and infrastructure, such as training and professional certification initiatives, product documentation, developer collaboration and release support, and local and global events programs.

The OpenSearch Software Foundation launches with support from premier members AWS, SAP, and Uber and general members Aiven, Aryn, Atlassian, Canonical, DigitalOcean, Eliatra, Graylog, NetApp® Instaclustr, and Portal26. The foundation will support the OpenSearch Project, which has been organized as an open technical project within the Linux Foundation, overseen by a technical steering committee.

"From the beginning, OpenSearch has brought together a fiercely loyal community of users, developers, and partners who recognized that for the project to truly thrive, it required open collaboration with contributions from a diverse set of stakeholders," said Nandini Ramani, Vice President of Search and Cloud Operations at AWS. "By transferring OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation, we are setting the project and its community up for its next stage of growth. With vendor-neutral governance that invites greater collaboration, along with programming and operational resources to further nurture the community, we look forward to working collaboratively with this new foundation to ensure everyone can continue to benefit from OpenSearch." 

"The Linux Foundation is excited to provide a neutral home for open and collaborative development around open source search and analytics," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. "Search is something we all rely on every day, for both business and consumer purposes, and we look forward to supporting the OpenSearch community and helping them provide powerful search and analytics tools for organizations and individuals around the world."

The OpenSearch Software Foundation is dedicated to driving the growth and development of OpenSearch and its open source search and analytics tools. To learn more about OpenSearch, including how to get involved, participate, or become a member of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, please visit the project website, GitHub, and Slack workspace.

Supporting Quotes

"Being a founding member of the new OpenSearch Foundation is a significant milestone for our strategic involvement and for our unified, business-centric, and open SAP Business Technology Platform. With the strong community support and strengthened ability to co-innovate, it is an important element in our observability strategy. We look forward to shaping this future path together with the wide range of our fellow contributors."
-Michael Ameling, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Business Technology Platform, SAP

"Uber Technologies, Inc. is thrilled to extend our strong support for OpenSearch as it joins the Linux Foundation. This milestone marks a significant leap forward for the project, which has already been instrumental in enhancing our consumer products. OpenSearch's sophisticated search capabilities have empowered our customers to make more informed, strategic decisions, fundamentally elevating their experience and satisfaction. We are confident that OpenSearch will thrive within the collaborative and innovative environment of the Linux Foundation, alongside other esteemed projects. As OpenSearch embarks on this important journey, we remain deeply committed to its ongoing development and success. Our support for OpenSearch underscores our broader commitment to advancing open-source technologies and driving innovation across the industry. We eagerly anticipate the continued growth and impact of OpenSearch within the open-source community."
- Shanshan Song, Senior Director of Engineering, Uber

"OpenSearch is highly respected in the open source community for its robust search and analytics capabilities. As committed supporters of this project, we've been offering Aiven for OpenSearch as a fully managed service on the cloud platform of our customers' choice since its inception. We are delighted to see OpenSearch transition to the Linux Foundation and thank AWS for successfully stewarding the project to this point. We look forward to this new era and its continued development and success under open governance."
– Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO & Co-founder, Aiven

"OpenSearch has been at the forefront of open source search technology since its inception, and continues to break ground in a number of areas including vector search, ML, and GenAI. At Aryn, our AI-powered document ETL system, Sycamore, unlocks the value trapped in unstructured data for GenAI use cases. We are delighted to have played a leading role in contributing to OpenSearch's GenAI features including semantic and hybrid search, conversational search, and RAG. We are excited about OpenSearch's move to the Linux Foundation, and grateful for the opportunity to be a founding member. This change will accelerate OpenSearch's ability to innovate, collaborate, and benefit the entire community."
– Mehul Shah, CEO, Aryn.ai

"At Atlassian, we're deeply invested in improving enterprise search capabilities across our product portfolio, which is why we use OpenSearch as the backbone platform for our search scenarios. As a founding member of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, we're excited to collaborate more closely with the community to improve the scalability, flexibility, security, and efficiency of the search system in this open-source environment."
-Taroon Mandhana, Head of Product Engineering, Atlassian

"OpenSearch is a powerful search and analytics engine with a growing community we are proud to be part of since its beginning in 2021. Community-driven projects like OpenSearch align perfectly with our mission to make advanced search and data visualization accessible to all. Our enterprise-grade offerings for OpenSearch are a critical part of our data and AI portfolio. We are thrilled to be a founding member of the OpenSearch Software Foundation and join this new platform for open collaboration and innovation."
- Cedric Gegout, VP of Product at Canonical

"Earlier this year, DigitalOcean launched Managed OpenSearch to equip our customers with essential search and analytics tools for today's data-driven world. We're proud to support the OpenSearch project as it joins the Linux Foundation, marking a new chapter of innovation. With OpenSearch playing a key role in advancing AI and emerging technologies, we remain committed to its growth and the success of its community as we work together to support the future of open source."
- Bratin Saha, CPTO, DigitalOcean

"Eliatra has been a pioneer in the search landscape, playing a pivotal role in the evolution of OpenSearch since its early days. With a decade of expertise we've made significant contributions to enhancing the project's security and performance. We are excited to join the OpenSearch Software Foundation under the Linux Foundation's guidance, as it offers an exceptional platform for collaboration and innovation. Together, we aim to shape the future of Open Source search solutions, ensuring they remain powerful, secure, and accessible to all."
– Jochen Kressin, Co-Founder & Director, Eliatra

"More than two years ago, we added OpenSearch as a key part of our Threat Detection and Incident Response platform. Graylog's strengths in log management, security information, and event management paired with the strong data layer foundation provided by OpenSearch delivers operational insight, enhanced security, and scalability to security analysts and IT professionals. Graylog began as an open source project and as the industry ushers in a new era of open-source development, we are pleased to be a founding member of the OpenSearch Software Foundation, dedicated to community-driven development."
– Robert Rea, CTO, Graylog

"NetApp Instaclustr is proud to have called itself a supporter of the OpenSearch project since its inception in 2021, bringing its powerful capabilities to our customers and empowering them to leverage their data for the AI era. With its integration into the Linux Foundation, OpenSearch begins a new chapter that fully embraces the spirit of open source software. We remain committed to supporting the development and growth of the project and its community of developers and users as they drive innovation together."
– Ben Slater, Chief Product Officer, NetApp Instaclustr

"OpenSearch has made tremendous strides since its early days as OpenDistro. From the outset, the initiative has focused on keeping innovation in this space accessible to all. With the successful launch of the OpenSearch project, AWS has provided an invaluable service to the community. The transition to the Linux Foundation is a significant milestone in its ongoing evolution. At Portal26, we are proud to offer FIPS 140-2 certified encryption for OpenSearch, ensuring that our customers can securely store sensitive data in both self-managed and AWS-managed OpenSearch clusters. We are excited about our continued partnership and wish this remarkable initiative lasting success."
- Pakshi Rajan, Head of Products, Portal26

About the Linux Foundation
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