FAQ

LF Edge is a new umbrella organization that aims to establish open, interoperable frameworks for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system. Launched in January 2019, LF Edge is comprised of existing Linux Foundation projects Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, and Open Glossary of Edge Computing, as well as the new Project EVE from ZEDEDA and Home Edge Project from Samsung Electronics.

As the number of IoT and edge devices nears 20 billion globally, LF Edge aims to create a vendor-neutral platform that works with any and all existing IoT specifications for deploying, connecting, and securing devices. LF Edge will bring the best of telecom, cloud, and enterprise technologies (representing both location and latency differentiation) to help ensure greater harmonization and accelerate IoT deployments at a global scale.

The Linux Foundation is already home to several other thriving umbrella organizations including the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, LF Networking, and LF Deep Learning. Uniting similar edge projects into one foundation provides a neutral structure for building a diverse open source community capable of driving better, more secure development at the edge. It also unifies an aligned vision for the diverse and complex edge projects being built today. Common infrastructure, shared resources, and more tightly-knit communities are among some of the other benefits of this umbrella structure.

The technical leaders and community for each project remain autonomous. This means, for example, that the individual Technical Steering Committees (TSCs) for Akraino and EdgeX will continue to drive their respective open source code bases and future roadmaps.

No, all developers are welcome to participate in LF Edge projects, mailing lists, and events. Technical Steering Committee meetings are open to the public and detailed technical information is accessible via the project wikis. Other ways to get involved include following us on Twitter (@lf_edge) and joining the community at on-site industry events.

The Linux Foundation is the parent of LF Edge. We are one of the Linux Foundation’s newest sub-foundations. LF Edge provides resources to the projects, but each project continues to operate independently with any existing maintainers under its pre-existing technical governance structure, if applicable. More information can be found at https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects.

LF Edge hosts various projects. Click on the Projects tab to learn more about Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, Home Edge Project, Open Glossary of Edge Computing, and Project EVE.

Yes. LF Edge will continue to evaluate new high-value projects as the industry evolves and new opportunities and solutions emerge. Additional projects – either in incubation, as seed code, or existing communities – will be added as voted in and approved by the TAC. When determining whether to accept a new project, the community will determine  if and how the potential project will meaningfully improve edge computing, existing communities, and the ecosystem at large, with input from key groups of potential users and developers from across the ecosystem.

Please fill out this contact form and an LF Edge representative will get back to you shortly!

Projects are not required to join the LF Edge umbrella in order to participate. The Linux Foundation is open to working with projects through the new LF Edge structure or as independent projects if that is what their supporters and leaders determine is the right fit.

You can keep up to date with LF Edge by connecting with us on social media at @lf_edge, keeping an eye out on our blog, and signing up for our newsletter.