Posted by Nate Foster on March 19, 2018
As you know, P4 has achieved broad adoption in the networking industry with multiple P4 targets and a rich set of open source P4 programs, compilers, APIs, tools and test frameworks. P4 continues to grow from strength to strength, with technical contributions from a large number of companies, universities and individuals. With about 100 member organizations, many of whom are making active contributions, P4 has reached a point where to grow even more we need the help of a larger organization.
On Friday, we announced that P4 will become a project under the ONF/Linux Foundation umbrellas. What this means is that P4 will continue to be self-contained and self-managed project (with the same GitHub repositories and permissive open-source license), but it will enjoy many of the benefits of the large membership and extensive staff at both organizations. Basically, it will help P4 grow and scale more efficiently.
To be clear, there will be no change to the day-to-day activities of P4.org and P4 community in terms of Working Groups and technical contributors. And importantly, membership for P4.org will remain free. We are excited to be working together with ONF and LF to build on the synergies brought forth by this collaboration.
I’d like to thank all of the developers who have brought us this far and the chairs of our working groups who have provided leadership for the community. I’m looking forward to accelerated innovation in networking enabled by P4 and our strong and committed developer community.
