This, from an AT&T press release at the end of January:

AT&T* is working to provide the industry with a more open, flexible and cost-effective alternative to traditional integrated networking equipment. We intend to open source a project that we call the Disaggregated Network Operating System, or dNOS, hosted by The Linux Foundation.

So far so good. Another network operating system, which is also open source, but I’m following along.

Then this:

“The Linux Foundation welcomes the dNOS project to the open source community," said Arpit Joshipura, general manager of Networking, The Linux Foundation. “The dNOS project will help create a network operating system community that will benefit existing Linux Foundation projects like FRRouting and OpenSwitch, and pave the way for future projects to help drive innovation at the lower layers of the network stack.”

How will another open source networking community, ostensibly shoved into the open by a single incumbent, benefit existing communities? AT&T would have been better in just collaborating with OpenSwitch rather than creating another open source network operating system. Similar to what Google did with Stratum this week, the market is becoming flooded with open source network operating systems, all based on Linux, and all pushing a specific agenda from their previous owners. It’s becoming confusing and it isn’t helping anyone at this point.