How do you buy a used Linux container? A quick search of “how to buy a shipping container” will turn up a wealth of information, especially how to evaluate used ones. While all analogies are imperfect, this one is pretty good and it does highlight an interesting problem – basically, any Linux container image over a minute old is used in the...

The Paths Forward In Container Portability: Part2: Code Portability Today, we discussed how there are no regression tests, there is no complete interface standard, there is definitely pain ahead if we think we can use today’s container images (level 3B) on tomorrow’s container hosts (level 3A), 10 years from now. So, what’s the solution? With the...

Like in the physical world of shipping containers, the OCI container image and runtime formats are critical because they allow for infrastructure and investment to happen among a bunch competing and collaborating entities. Vendors can invest in building an ecosystem of tools, orchestrators, registry servers, etc. Users can extract value from the ecosystem, move...

Code Portability Today In Container Portability: Part 1: A Brief History in Code Portability, we explored the genesis of code portability and visited structured computer organization to highlight the six commonly found levels in modern computing. Revisiting the six layers – nobody debates the portability of the upper two layers – Application Programmers...

A Brief History in Code Portability Do you know why you can take a Python program and run it on any computer that has a Python interpreter on it? Well, because the computer industry has made a huge amount of investment into providing portability over the last 70 years. In the beginning, computers didn’t have portable code – programmers had to learn to...