Open Compute Project

URL = http://opencompute.org/

Description

"Under an initiative dubbed the Open Compute Project, Facebook released designs for the technology powering its new data center in Prineville, Ore., which Facebook says is 38 percent more efficient and 24 percent cheaper to run thanks to its custom engineering.

Facebook framed the effort as a means of encouraging collaboration in the tech industry, advancing "best practices" in the construction of data centers and upholding its commitment to openness." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/facebook-open-compute-project_n_846925.html)

Status

January 2014

Charles Babcock:

"The Open Compute Project founded by Facebook has made rapid strides in what has been a narrow sphere of influence. The cloud is an x86 world, and, in its first three years, OCP has put out several motherboard and server designs for cloud projects.

The early adopters have been primarily big financial services companies, such as Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, and Goldman Sachs. At the Open Compute Project Summit this week in San Jose, Calif., OCP showed it may be ready to grow beyond one industrial segment into others, such as online gaming and pharmaceuticals, and expand the reach of open-source hardware in other ways.

OCP broadened its approach to licensing, as well. The hardware designs are available under an Apache Software Foundation-style of license, where the licensee may make modifications, sell them, and keep the additions proprietary. It's a "permissive" license, in the parlance of open-source. The adopter may do just about anything with the code without obligation. To encourage contributors, the Open Compute Project Foundation may move to a second model, a GPL-like license, where anyone may modify an Open Compute Project design, but if they sell a product based on it they must contribute their changes back to the community. The GPL governs Linux use. Its giveback clause makes it more restrictive, or "prescriptive," in how for-profit modifications must be handled.

"Soon we will roll out a second, more 'prescriptive' license," wrote Open Compute Project founder Frank Frankovsky in a Jan. 28 blog.

It will require anyone who modifies an OCP design and then sells a product based on it "to contribute the modified version back to the foundation. It's our hope that having multiple licensing options will lead to even more OCP technology contributions," he wrote.

[Cloudscaling's Randy Bias has a specific point of view about what makes a cloud service "open." See When The Open Cloud... Isn't.]

In another sign of maturity, OCP Summit speakers and panelists seemed to leave behind their references to converting thousands of servers and embraced both larger expectations and bigger numbers." (The Open Compute Project founded by Facebook has made rapid strides in what has been a narrow sphere of influence. The cloud is an x86 world, and, in its first three years, OCP has put out several motherboard and server designs for cloud projects." (http://www.informationweek.com/infrastructure/cloud-infrastructure/open-source-cloud-hardware-grows-up-fast/d/d-id/1113637)