The OpenInfra Diversity & Inclusion Working Group

The OpenInfra Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Working Group was created to foster a welcoming environment within the global community by lowering barriers to entry and embracing diversity. Over the years, members of the OpenInfra Foundation Board of Directors, staff, and community members have collaborated to achieve this goal in various ways.

One of the key initiatives of the OpenInfra D&I Working Group has been conducting diversity surveys to identify challenges within OpenInfra project communities and work toward solutions. For example, survey results revealed that newcomers struggled with tools such as Git and Gerrit, which hindered their ability to contribute. In response, the group organized "Git and Gerrit Lunch and Learn" sessions at in-person events to help new contributors gain hands-on experience. The group has also facilitated mentoring programs, including initiatives during Open Source Days at the Grace Hopper Conference and within the OpenInfra community itself.

In addition to education and mentorship, the working group has led efforts to promote inclusive language in OpenInfra projects and communications (read more here). As community needs evolve, the group has also played a key role in updating the OpenInfra Community Code of Conduct to ensure that OpenInfra activities remain safe and inclusive.

Looking ahead to 2025, the group aims to support the community in implementing and promoting translation efforts and improving the diversity landing page to provide clearer and more accessible information.

If you want to get involved in the OpenInfra D&I Working Group‘s effort, join the working group’s regular meetings and sign up for the OpenInfra Foundation mailing list for more updates.

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OpenInfra Foundation News

• Members from the OpenInfra ecosystem—Canonical, Mirantis, Rackspace, and Wind River—joined Jonathan Bryce on OpenInfra Live to discuss their takeaways from the virtualization market disruption caused by VMware, the role open source communities play, and how their organizations are responding.

• OpenInfra Members continue to build on the success of the VMware Migration Working Group. We held our first meeting on Feb 11 and are continuing to meet bi-weekly to develop an even more ambitious publication for 2025. The upcoming VMware Migration Guide will continue to educate the market on the power of open source virtualization as an alternative to single-vendor solutions.

• The OpenInfra for AI Working Group met for the first time this month in an effort to gather OpenInfra Members to tell the stories of AI workloads running on OpenStack-powered infrastructure. We’ll be working over the coming months to publish these architectures to the broader community and ecosystem. If you have a compelling AI powered by OpenStack story, please reach out to [email protected] with more details!

• New OpenInfra Silver Members

  • Netways GmbH
  • Sichuan Huacun
  • Taiji Computer Co., Ltd.

• If you’re interested in participating in members-only opportunities such as the VMware to OpenStack Migration Working Group or OpenInfra for AI Working Group, consider membership of the OpenInfra Foundation. Contact Jimmy McArthur today to find out more!

OpenStack: Open source software for creating private and public clouds

• Congratulations to Michal Nasiadka on being elected to your first term on the Technical Committee, and to returning TC members Amy Marrich, Artem Goncharov, Goutham Pacha Ravi and Dmitriy Rabotyagov, as well as to the 34 Project Team Leads elected for the upcoming “Flamingo” development cycle! Also many thanks to Ian Y. Choi and Sławek Kapłoński for serving as election officials. See the 2025.2 TC and PTL election results for a complete list of elected positions.
• Users of the OFTC Matrix bridge may need to find an alternative for connecting to IRC at the end of March. The Matrix Foundation has indicated this service (and others) will be shut down at that time if additional funding is not found.

Kata Containers: The speed of containers, the security of VMs

• Kata 3.14 is now available, with bug fixes and new versions of some of the components that are integrated into Kata Containers!
• The community is continuing progress towards 4.0 by improving CI and working on the new Rust runtime.

StarlingX: A fully featured cloud for the distributed edge

• StarlingX 10.0 is now available! Check out the release overview blog post to learn more about the new features and improvements in the platform!
• The planning phase for the 11.0 cycle is currently ongoing. Make sure to propose your feature ideas as specifications, if you would like them to be part of this release.

Community Events

Upcoming OpenInfra and Community Events

Celebrate OpenStack's 15th Birthday

• March 6: Pasadena, California 
• May 22: Stockholm, Sweden 
• Check out more upcoming celebrations!

OpenInfra Days North America 2025 

• Co-located with SCaLE in Pasadena, CA

• OpenInfra Days North America will take place on March 6 & 7, SCaLE will continue until March 9.

• Register | Thursday Schedule | Friday Schedule

• A massive thank you to the OpenInfra Days North America Sponsors!

  

  For more information about OpenInfra community events, please contact [email protected].