k3s is not a fork of Kubernetes. It is an opinionated way of delivering Kubernetes to IoT and Edge devices. Talking to Kubernetes steering committee made it clear that Kubernetes main design principle is extensibility, and the core system will be maintained to support Kubernetes development/deployment in a generic and configurable way. Therefore projects like k3s could benefit the ecosystem by expanding Kubernetes adoption footprint while remaining standalone.

For the areas where k3s maintainers can contribute back to Kubernetes, we should strongly encourage them to do so. Mending the relationship with Kubernetes community should be the first priority for the health of the project. By accepting k3s to Sandbox we get an opportunity to advise on its contributor experience, sustainability and governance. 

-alena

On Jul 31, 2020, at 11:07 AM, alexis richardson <alexis@...> wrote:

-1, nb

+1 to joe & bob comments.

I am very keen to see k3s initiative do well

I am even more keen to see it feed back into K8s

let's find a way to make this work!  I don't know the answer and recognise how unfair this probably seems to the k3s folks

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 7:04 PM Joe Beda <jbeda@...> wrote:

-1 non-binding

 

My concerns echo Bob’s.

 

There is a ton to like about k3s.  There is a super enthusiastic user community and it has pioneered bringing together an opinionated set of components with a streamlined experience.  That is awesome!

 

Concrete concerns:

1. Is k3s a distribution?  Many people publicly refer to it as such. The project page itself (k3s.io) has a headline saying “The certified Kubernetes distribution built for IoT & Edge computing”.
2. Should the CNCF be a place to host distributions? (purpose discussion for the TOC)
3. The name is very confusing.  Kubernetes and k8s are synonymous.  In fact, “k8s” is a registered trademark of the LF (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-list/).  I’m not a lawyer, but these clearly commercially overlap and there is confusion in the marketplace. The LF may need to take action here regardless of the TOC decision.
4. The places where k3s has made progress has, traditionally, included essentially forking parts of k8s and rebuilding.  That forking has gotten thinner over time but is still there.  There are promises around pushing changes upstream, but, to my knowledge, that has been minimal.  The relationship there is fraught with a lot of history of friction and conflict.
5. [point in time concern] The project is still pretty entangled with the rest of Rancher.  This can be solved but obviously hasn’t been a priority.  An example is that the documentation for k3s is part of the Rancher docs repo.  Would the docs be included in the assets that come into the CNCF?
1. The repo is also part of the Rancher org.  The set of code owners is hidden and looks to be driven exclusively by Rancher (https://github.com/rancher/k3s/blob/master/CODEOWNERS).

 

There are a lot of thorny issues here. I have confidence in the TOC to be able to detangle these.

 

Thanks,

Joe

 

From: cncf-toc@... <cncf-toc@...>
Date: Friday, July 31, 2020 at 9:14 AM
To: aprokharchyk@... <aprokharchyk@...>, Amye Scavarda Perrin <ascavarda@...>
Cc: CNCF TOC <cncf-toc@...>
Subject: [Suspected Spam] Re: [cncf-toc] [VOTE] k3s for Sandbox

-1 non-binding.

 

I’m deeply concerned about the idea that CNCF is accepting what appears to be a Kubernetes fork into sandbox.

 

The statements about “encouraging upstream” seem like good intentions only.

 

Kubernetes as a project has, in my opinion, succeeded in part because of the community dedication to staying upstream and not forking.

 

For clarity, I would be strongly in favor of k3s being part of Kubernetes upstream.

 

-Bob

 

 

 

 

From: <cncf-toc@...> on behalf of "Alena Prokharchyk via lists.cncf.io" <aprokharchyk=apple.com@...>
Reply-To: "aprokharchyk@..." <aprokharchyk@...>
Date: Friday, July 31, 2020 at 9:09 AM
To: Amye Scavarda Perrin <ascavarda@...>
Cc: CNCF TOC <cncf-toc@...>
Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] [cncf-toc] [VOTE] k3s for Sandbox

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender and know the content is safe.

 

+1 binding.

 

-alena.

On Jul 31, 2020, at 8:04 AM, Amye Scavarda Perrin <ascavarda@...> wrote:

 

k3s has applied for inclusion into the sandbox: https://github.com/cncf/toc/pull/447.

Liz Rice has called for the vote: https://lists.cncf.io/g/cncf-toc/message/5081 

Please vote (+1/0/-1) by replying to this thread.

Remember that the TOC has binding votes only, but we do appreciate non-binding votes from the community as a sign of support!

 

--

Amye Scavarda Perrin | Program Manager | amye@...