Heroku has been undergoing a major transformation, re-platforming its entire Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering over the past year and a half. This ambitious effort, dubbed “Fir,” will soon reach general availability. According to Betty Junod, CMO and SVP at Heroku (owned by Salesforce), the overhaul includes a shift to Kubernetes and OCI standards, reinforcing Heroku’s commitment to open source. The platform now features Heroku Cloud Native Buildpacks, which let developers create container images without Dockerfiles. Originally built on Ruby on Rails and predating Docker and AWS, Heroku now supports eight programming languages. The company has also deepened its open source engagement by becoming a platinum member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), contributing to projects like OpenTelemetry. Additionally, Heroku has open sourced its Twelve-Factor Apps methodology, inviting the community to help modernize it to address evolving needs such as secrets management and workload identity. This signals a broader effort to align Heroku’s future with the cloud native ecosystem. Learn more from The New Stack about Heroku's approach to Platform-as-a-Service:Return to PaaS: Building the Platform of Our DreamsHeroku Moved Twelve-Factor Apps to Open Source. What’s Next?How Heroku Is Positioned To Help Ops Engineers in the GenAI EraJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.
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18:01
Container Security and AI: A Talk with Chainguard's Founder
In this episode of The New Stack Makers, recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, Alex Williams speaks with Ville Aikas, Chainguard founder and early Kubernetes contributor. They reflect on the evolution of container security, particularly how early assumptions—like trusting that users would validate container images—proved problematic. Aikas recalls the lack of secure defaults, such as allowing containers to run as root, stemming from the team’s internal Google perspective, which led to unrealistic expectations about external security practices.The Kubernetes community has since made strides with governance policies, secure defaults, and standard practices like avoiding long-lived credentials and supporting federated authentication. Aikas founded Chainguard to address the need for trusted, minimal, and verifiable container images—offering zero-CVE images, transparent toolchains, and full SBOMs. This security-first philosophy now extends to virtual machines and Java dependencies via Chainguard Libraries.The discussion also highlights the rising concerns around AI/ML security in Kubernetes, including complex model dependencies, GPU integrations, and potential attack vectors—prompting Chainguard’s move toward locked-down AI images.Learn more from The New Stack about Container Security and AIChainguard Takes Aim At Vulnerable Java LibrariesClean Container Images: A Supply Chain Security RevolutionRevolutionizing Offensive Security: A New Era With Agentic AI Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.
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20:51
Kelsey Hightower, AWS's Eswar Bala on Open Source's Evolution
In a candid episode of The New Stack Makers, Kubernetes pioneer Kelsey Hightower and AWS’s Eswar Bala explored the evolving relationship between enterprise cloud providers and open source software at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon London. Hightower highlighted open source's origins as a grassroots movement challenging big vendors, and shared how it gave people—especially those without traditional tech credentials—a way into the industry. Recalling his own journey, Hightower emphasized that open source empowered individuals through contribution over credentials.Bala traced the early development of Kubernetes and his own transition from building container orchestration systems to launching AWS’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), driven by growing customer demand. The discussion, recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, touched on how open source is now central to enterprise cloud strategies, with AWS not only contributing but creating projects like Karpenter, Cedar, and Kro.Both speakers agreed that open source's collaborative model—where companies build in public and customers drive innovation—has reshaped the cloud ecosystem, turning former tensions into partnerships built on community-driven progress.Learn more from The New Stack about the relationship between enterprise cloud providers and open source software:The Metamorphosis of Open Source: An Industry in TransitionThe Complex Relationship Between Cloud Providers and Open SourceHow Open Source Has Turned the Tables on Enterprise SoftwareJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.
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37:52
The Kro Project: Giving Kubernetes Users What They Want
In a rare show of collaboration, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have joined forces on Kro — the Kubernetes Resource Orchestrator — an open source, cloud-agnostic tool designed to simplify custom resource orchestration in Kubernetes. Announced during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, Kro was born from strong customer demand for a Kubernetes-native solution that works across cloud providers without vendor lock-in. Nic Slattery, Product Manager at Google and Jesse Butler, Principal Product Manager, AWS shared with The New Stack that unlike many enterprise products, Kro didn’t stem from top-down strategy but from consistent customer "pull" experienced by all three companies. It aims to reduce complexity by allowing platform teams to offer simplified interfaces to developers, enabling resource requests without needing deep service-specific knowledge. Kro also represents a unique cross-company collaboration, driven by a shared mission and open source values. Though still in its alpha stage, the project has already attracted 57 contributors in just seven months. The team is now focused on refining core features and preparing for a production-ready release — all while maintaining a narrowly scoped, community-first approach.Learn more from The New Stack about KRO:One Mighty kro; One Giant Leap for Kubernetes Resource OrchestrationKubernetes Gets a New Resource Orchestrator in the Form of KroOrchestrate Cloud Native Workloads With Kro and KubernetesJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.
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21:51
OpenSearch: What’s Next for the Search and Analytics Suite?
OpenSearch has evolved significantly since its 2021 launch, recently reaching a major milestone with its move to the Linux Foundation. This shift from company-led to foundation-based governance has accelerated community contributions and enterprise adoption, as discussed by NetApp’s Amanda Katona in a New Stack Makers episode recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe. NetApp, an early adopter of OpenSearch following Elasticsearch’s licensing change, now offers managed services on the platform and contributes actively to its development.Katona emphasized how neutral governance under the Linux Foundation has lowered barriers to enterprise contribution, noting a 56% increase in downloads since the transition and growing interest from developers. OpenSearch 3.0, featuring a Lucene 10 upgrade, promises faster search capabilities—especially relevant as data volumes surge. NetApp’s ongoing investments include work on machine learning plugins and developer training resources.Katona sees the Linux Foundation’s involvement as key to OpenSearch’s long-term success, offering vendor-neutral governance and reassuring users seeking openness, performance, and scalability in data search and analytics.Learn more from The New Stack about OpenSearch: Report: OpenSearch Bests ElasticSearch at Vector ModelingAWS Transfers OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation OpenSearch: How the Project Went From Fork to FoundationJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.
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