Let’s talk about the impact of working on OpenFaaS full-time for the past year and some important updates for 2019 including how you can help and get involved.
Looking back
Over 12 months ago I joined VMware to work full-time on OpenFaaS in the Open Source Program Office. While there I built out a team to complement the work of the community and to accelerate the development of both OpenFaaS (the main project) and to execute on my vision for OpenFaaS Cloud.
Over the year I travelled to, and spoke at, around a dozen events and conferences around the world making many friends & connections in the tech community.
Here are some of the things I’m most proud of over that time:
- The number of contributors across the openfaas GitHub org increased 3.5x from around 50 to over 180 and our GitHub stars reached 16k
- We gained several dozen new end-user companies, some of which gave us permission to list their logo on the website
- We have partnered with AWS Open Source, Weaveworks, Spotinst and DigitalOcean on technical content, tutorials and guides
- We won a second Bossie Award from InfoWorld
- I spoke on the CUBE about Open Source from a community perspective representing the project
- We got a brand new mission patch logo and t-shirt
- We launched a dedicated documentation site and blog for the OpenFaaS project with end-user and guest posts live today
- We shipped several great features for OpenFaaS Cloud including GitLab integration, OAuth2, a personalized dashboard and full automation
- Within OpenFaaS itself we shipped authentication turned on by default, a template store, the secrets API, a helm chart repo, read-only filesystems and new templates for Java and PHP
Moving on
This has been an amazing year for the project and a key part of that has been due to my ability to focus as a full-time employee with a salary from VMware whilst keeping OpenFaaS independent. I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to grow and for those who championed my work and supported me during my time there. As of today I will be moving on from VMware.
Historically the project has had strong interest from customers and potential sponsors. The community is pushing the project forward rapidly too. That gives me great pride and means I have the opportunity to consider many ways to keep working on the project myself.
I’m excited about what the next year will bring for our project and community. Let’s make 2019 an even brighter year for OpenFaaS.
Let’s talk?
If you are interested in a conversation about hiring me to support & sponsor my Open Source work then email me at: alex@openfaas.com
There are several ways you can support the project, even if you don’t have the resources to hire me full-time. You can also donate as an individual or as a sponsor through Patreon, OpenCollective or a one-off via PayPal. Individual backers and sponsors enjoy different tiers of benefits as outlined at: https://www.openfaas.com/donate/
Connect with me on GitHub LinkedIn Twitter
If you’re still figuring out where to place Serverless & FaaS in your work, or whether it’s even relevant to your world catch up on all the latest with my video from GOTO Copenhagen and then get connected with the community using the links below.