OpenSwitch has become a Linux Foundation collaborative project, giving networking vendors another open source, Linux-based software option for enterprise grade switches backed by industry partners.

OpenSwitch is a project launched by HP in October 2015 to build an open source networking operating system (NOS) based on Linux. It remains under development, but a preview release is available.

The OpenSwitch NOS is not the only platform of its kind. The list of other NOS options is long. Nor is OpenSwitch the only NOS designed to be open. Other examples in this category include Cumulus Linux and Open Network Linux.

However, OpenSwitch has the distinction of being backed by several industry partners, including HP Enterprise, Intel and VMware, among others.

And now, OpenSwitch also has the support of the Linux Foundation, which on June 1 announced that it will be administering OpenSwitch as one of the Linux Foundation collaborative projects.

In announcing the news, the Linux Foundation emphasized its goal of keeping OpenSwitch development open to community contributors. “The OpenSwitch Project operates with an open governance model and accepts contributions from all interested companies and developers,” the organization said in a statement.

What’s in It for the Channel?

From a channel perspective, the OpenSwitch news is significant for two reasons.

First, it’s the latest example of the drive by industry partners to decouple enterprise networking hardware from software. The days when hardware vendors like Cisco also control the software that powers their devices are numbered. By extension, new partnership opportunities are likely to arise as open, vendor-agnostic NOS platforms like OpenSwitch make it possible to build networking solutions using open source software and commodity hardware.

Second, the news underscores the Linux Foundation’s deep investment in open source networking solutions. The organization, which was founded primarily to support the development of the Linux kernel, now oversees several networking projects, including OpenDaylight, OpenNFV and now OpenSwitch.

If it wasn’t already clear that networking is poised to become one of the next big things in the open source ecosystem, it should be now.