CoreOS and Docker to jointly develop Open Container Format

Docker and CoreOS, two companies that each seemed to steer their own course, will work on the Open Container Project together with The Linux Foundation, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, among others. This initiative should deliver an open source and widely supported software container format.

The Open Container Format will be based on the container format that Docker has developed. The runtime must also become part of this new specification. To this end, Docker will release the draft specification, in which members of The Linux Foundation and companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have indicated that they will support the further development standard.

The final specification of the Open Container Format should ensure that such containers run on all platforms, such as on Docker, CoreOS and Kurma. The standard must also be developed openly without a party being able to determine the course. The Linux Foundation has to take care of that.

Participants in the Open Container Project are excited about the announced collaboration between key players in the virtualization market. The director of CoreOS tells TechCrunch that while Docker is the de facto standard, there is still room for improvement by jointly working on the specification. Docker also says the move to release the specification was necessary to further accelerate container development, while Google believes software developers in particular will benefit from the project over time.

Disagreements arose at the end of last year when CoreOS developers decided out of dissatisfaction to develop their own container format in addition to Docker’s. They also had their own runtime in mind. This threatened fragmentation in the development of open source container technology.