Amazon, Google, and Microsoft recently announced Kro, an open source resource orchestrator for Kubernetes. Kro is one of a growing number of solutions for managing the complexity of Kubernetes:

Although Kubernetes is in its 11th year, developers, operators and SREs still consider it complex. Installing, managing, scaling and handling Kubernetes requires advanced skills and a thorough understanding of its underpinnings. Numerous attempts have been made to address this problem. Helm was introduced as a package manager, and Cloud Native Application Bundles (CNAB) was created as a standardized packaging format for distributed applications.

This particular solution is notable for the heavyweights backing it, who collectively account for over 60% of the market for cloud infrastructure services.

A couple of observations here:

1. Open source has drastically quickened the pace of innovation. And as OSS licensing models become more and more popular, the pace continues to quicken even further. Kubernetes is only ten years old but is now the de facto standard for streamlining deployment of cloud applications. That happened so quickly that the current de facto standard for Kubernetes package management–i.e. Helm–was born in 2018, only four years after Kubernetes itself was born. And now, only seven years removed from the birth of Helm, a new heavyweight-backed solution has emerged to bridge perceived gaps in the functionality of Helm.
2. Though none of the above projects are commercial endeavors in and of themselves, they present lessons and opportunities for COSS entrepreneurs. Kubernetes was built to address needs created by the rapid growth of the cloud. Helm was built to address pain points created by the complexity of Kubernetes as its adoption began to grow exponentially. And now, Kro was created to provide additional streamlining capabilities for Kubernetes in the post-deployment phase. The lesson for COSS entrepreneurs lies in anticipating the opportunities that their innovations create. Building a popular solution to a pressing pain point isn’t enough to become a successful COSS entrepreneur (or any kind of entrepreneur, for that matter). Rather, the successful COSS entrepreneurs are those who anticipate the additional needs that widespread adoption of their solutions will create and find revenue opportunities in meeting those needs.

To explore these and other valuable lessons further, check out our workshops on COSS for founders and COSS for investors.