Kubernetes, the open source Container Cluster orchestration framework that was started by Google in 2014, has hit version 1.0 today, with Google saying that it is set for production now. More importantly though, Google has also announced that it will donate this technology to a new initiative under the Linux Foundation, called the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Kubernetes, developed by Google in 2014, is meant for managing containerized applications in a clustered environment. With Kubernetes, Google aims to provides better managing related, distributed components across varied infrastructure.
Kubernetes was essentially designed to address the disconnect between the way that modern, clustered infrastructure is designed, and some of the assumptions that most applications and services have about their environments.
Google’s container management platform has been under development ever since it was announced in 2014, with the first stable production version, coming out today. 
And as version 1.0 hits Live, Google has decided to donate this tech to an open source initiative under the Linux Foundation with an “intent take its technology and make it as ubiquitous as possible”.
In an interview with TechCrunch’s Frederic Lardinois, Google senior product manager Craig McLuckie says,
We want people to be able to pick a cloud. The majority of our customers work in a hybrid cloud world but want to get the benefits of this cloud native computing paradigm.
However, even though Google has donated the project to this newly formed Cloud Native computing foundation, McLuckie says that the company will remain pro-active within the project itself. Interestingly, Kubernetes will be the first project under the governance of CNCF, with a possibility of more similar container-related projects coming under it soon.
CNCF though, strikes quite a similarity with the recently announced Open Container Project, which also runs under the banner of Linux Foundation, and which also includes Google as one of its major backers.
While these container-management projects are gaining steam, certain major players in the field, most notably Microsoft and Amazon are still absent from the Arena. It remains to be seen whether these giants will come up with a container project of their own, or join the current initiatives.
