DEVOPSdigest

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, and Synadia announced that the NATS project will continue to thrive in the cloud native open source ecosystem of the CNCF with Synadia’s continued support and involvement.

The agreement comes following productive discussions with Synadia about the future of the NATS project. To align expectations and reinforce open governance, Synadia has agreed to assign its two NATS trademark registrations to the Linux Foundation. These steps further secure the project’s neutral stewardship for the future. The NATS project’s infrastructure and assets–including the NATS.io domain name and GitHub repositories–will continue to be held by CNCF, ensuring long-term stability and ongoing open source development under the Apache-2.0 license.

“As steward of the NATS project, CNCF is committed to upholding open collaboration, neutral governance, and shared ownership so NATS can continue to grow and thrive as a community-driven project.” said Todd Moore, SVP Community Operations of the Linux Foundation. “We value all of Synadia’s efforts in developing and contributing to NATS–including their investment in defense of the NATS trademark– and appreciate their continued support of the project.”

Synadia is a major contributor to NATS and will continue contributing to and maintaining the NATS project. Like all members of the community, Synadia is also free to pursue its own commercial interests by building on top of the open source NATS project. As with any open source codebase, if Synadia chooses to fork the NATS server code for a proprietary offering in the future, it will do so under a new name.

“NATS has been a labor of love of mine for nearly 15 years now. The entire Synadia team and I deeply care about NATS and have devoted significant resources to its growth and adoption. Our commitment remains unwavering—to provide impactful, accessible technology that benefits the global community. We genuinely look forward to deepening our collaboration with the Linux Foundation and CNCF, ensuring all mature and successful projects within the CNCF receive the robust support they need to thrive.” said Derek Collison, CEO of Synadia and the creator of NATS.

“NATS is widely adopted, deeply valued, and continues to serve as critical infrastructure for a broad range of adopters. The outpouring of support from the global community over the past week for NATS to remain a thriving open source project with Synadia’s continued involvement has been extraordinary and deeply appreciated.” continued Moore.