Open Container Initiative

The Open Container Initiative (OCI) is a Linux Foundation project, started in June 2015 by Docker, CoreOS, and the maintainers of appc (short for "App Container") to design open standards for operating system-level virtualization (containers).[1][2][3] At launch, OCI was focused on Linux containers and subsequent work has extended it to other operating systems.[4][5][6]

Specifications

There are currently three OCI specifications in development and use: the Runtime Specification (runtime-spec), the Image Specification (image-spec), and the Distribution Specification (distribution-spec).

The OCI organization includes the development of runc, which is the reference implementation of the runtime-spec,[7][8] a container runtime that implements their specification and serves as a basis for other higher-level tools. runc was first released in July 2015 as version 0.0.1[9] and it reached version 1.0.0 on June 22, 2021.[10]

The OCI Image Format Project was split out from the Runtime Project into its own specification on March 23, 2016.[11] The image-spec is a software shipping container image format spec (OCI Image Format) that reached version 1.0.0 on July 19, 2017.[12]

The OCI Distribution Spec Project defines the distribution-spec, an API protocol to facilitate and standardize the distribution of content. The distribution-spec was created on March 8, 2018 from a Proposal for a JSON Registry API V2.1.[13] The distribution-spec reached version 1.0.0 on April 26, 2021.[14]

See also

• Containerization (computing)

References

1. "Docker and CoreOS unite to start the Open Container Project and standardize runtime, image format". Venture Beat. 22 June 2015. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
2. "Open Container Initiative Finds Footing In Linux Foundation". InformationWeek. 8 December 2015. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
3. "Launch of Open Container Initiative". DockerCon 15. 26 June 2015. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
4. "Container platform tools on Windows". Microsoft. 15 March 2023. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
5. "runj: a new OCI Runtime for FreeBSD Jails". Samuel Karp. 16 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
6. "ocijail Experimental, proof-of-concept OCI-compatible runtime for jails". Doug Rabson. 16 November 2022. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
7. "opencontainers/runc: CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2020-01-17. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
8. opencontainers. "runc/runc.8.md at master · opencontainers/runc · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
9. opencontainers (2015-07-16). "Release v0.0.1: runc/libcontainer release · opencontainers/runc · GitHub". Github.com. Retrieved 2020-01-15.
10. opencontainers (2021-05-22). "Release runc 1.0 -- "A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to." · opencontainers/runc · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2024-10-05. Retrieved 2024-10-05.
11. opencontainers (2016-03-23). "Release v0.1: image-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
12. opencontainers (2017-07-19). "Release v1.0.0: image-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
13. Docker (2014-11-06). "Proposal: JSON Registry API V2.1 · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2023-09-01.
14. opencontainers (2021-04-26). "Release v1.0.0: distribution-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub". Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01. Retrieved 2023-09-01.

External links

• Official website
• Open Container Initiative on GitHub
• List of OCI Runtime Implementations from the Runtime Specification repository