Google officially is joining the open-source OpenStack Foundation today as a corporate sponsor. Google’s sponsorship isn’t about advocating for a rival cloud technology, but rather about helping boost interoperability across clouds, using container technology.
Google, of course, has its own cloud technology that is not open-source. In that light, Google’s Cloud can and should be seen as a rival to OpenStack, which powers both private and public clouds around the globe. However, Google is not undermining its own cloud by becoming a sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation; rather, it is deftly taking the initiative to improve support for its own cloud technologies.