They grow up so fast: donating your open source project to a foundation
October 21–24
The first commit to the CloudNativePG project was made in February 2020. Just two years later, EDB began the process of donating the project to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. This move wasn’t just symbolic—it was a deliberate strategy to ensure CloudNativePG could continue to thrive under the guidance of a broader, more diverse community of contributors.
Transferring stewardship of an open source project to a foundation is a milestone. It’s about more than governance—it’s about trust, neutrality, and long-term sustainability. Becoming part of the CNCF unlocks new levels of visibility, collaboration, and adoption, connecting the project with a global ecosystem of practitioners and end users.
At the time of writing, CloudNativePG is a CNCF Sandbox project. Our hope is to reach Incubation status by the end of next year. But how did we get here—and what does “donating” a project really involve?
Join us for a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the journey of donating an open-source project to a foundation: the motivations, the process, the surprises, and the lessons learned along the way.
