Dirk Hohndel’s view of open source is both technical and social: companies need more than permission to use code. They need to understand the projects they depend on, build relationships with their communities, and decide how to contribute to software they use in products. In interviews published from 2018 to 2020, he also drew a clear line between an independent project and a company’s commercial product. His “what’s next” argument is best read as practical guidance about sustaining communities and turning shared software into dependable services—not as a current forecast.
Open source is software and a social system
Hohndel has repeatedly stressed that open source cannot be understood only as a way of developing software. In VMware’s 2018 highlights from a theCUBE interview at KubeCon EU, he called it “a social phenomenon” as well as a software development methodology. In a 2017 essay, he put the human element more simply: “At the core, open source is all about people and relationships.” VMware’s 2018 interview highlights and his 2017 essay present this as his perspective on how projects work.
That emphasis changes what responsible use looks like. A company may download a component and successfully run it without ever participating in its community. But it will be less prepared to understand the project’s direction, explain its own needs, or help address problems that affect its product. Relationships and trust are part of the practical infrastructure that lets contributors coordinate work and maintain software.
A community project is not the same as a company product
In VMware’s January 2020 summary of a TFiR conversation, Hohndel distinguished community projects from products built by companies. A project’s community defines its scope, features, and releases; a company product is shaped by customer requirements, the company’s architecture, and its wider product family. The distinction matters because a company may build on a project without owning or controlling the project itself. VMware’s summary of the TFiR conversation attributes this distinction to Hohndel.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware match#1 Best Overall
| Community project | Commercial product |
|---|---|
| Governed by its community, which sets the project’s scope, features, and release direction. | Created by a company to address customer needs within its architecture and product strategy. |
| May be used or extended by many organizations. | May package or build on open-source software and add work such as integration, support, compatibility, scale, or compliance. |
| Its priorities are not necessarily identical to any one user company’s priorities. | The vendor is responsible for the offering it sells, but that does not make it the owner of every upstream project it uses. |
This is not a claim that projects and products should be isolated from one another. Companies can contribute engineering work and improvements upstream while also building products that meet needs beyond a project’s own remit. VMware’s 2020 summary names scale, compliance, compatibility, and support as areas commercial work may address.
What companies should do beyond consuming code
Hohndel’s enterprise advice is not simply “contribute more.” It starts with understanding how open-source components are used and changed inside a company, then engaging with the communities behind them. In VMware’s 2018 interview highlights, he said: “You can’t just consume open source components; you need to engage with them, you need to understand how their work affects your work.” The interview highlights connect engagement with understanding dependencies and upstream work.
- Map dependencies. Identify which open-source components are used in products and services, where they run, and where the company has changed or extended them.
- Understand project activity and governance. Follow how the relevant communities make decisions and how their work may affect the software your teams rely on.
- Engage upstream. Bring questions and relevant expertise to the project rather than treating it only as an external source of code.
- Contribute improvements where possible. When a company has a useful fix or capability, upstreaming it can benefit the shared project as well as the company’s own software.
- Plan for operational work. Decide whether the company has the people and expertise to integrate and support the software itself, or needs a commercial offering to cover needs such as compatibility or compliance.
These steps serve different purposes. Dependency mapping helps teams see where they rely on a project; community engagement helps them understand its work; upstream contributions can improve software shared with others. None guarantees that a project will adopt a particular proposal or prioritize one company’s needs.
What “what’s next” means in practice
The interviews do not establish a single prediction about the future of open source. A more useful reading of Hohndel’s “what’s next” is the set of questions organizations must keep working through: how communities remain healthy, how companies turn upstream code into reliable services, and how incentives affect the people and organizations maintaining software.
Rank #3
- Used Book in Good Condition
Sustaining the communities behind software
Because open source depends on people and relationships, project health is not just a matter of whether code is available. Companies that rely on projects need to consider how they engage, share relevant expertise, and contribute work that can benefit the community. This follows Hohndel’s emphasis on community participation; it does not mean every company must contribute to every dependency in the same way.
Turning shared code into dependable services
Hohndel’s 2017 essay cautions against treating open source as a “free lunch” for production use. His point is that project software may need additional work before it fits a particular production environment. That work can include integration and, as VMware’s 2020 summary describes, addressing customer needs around scale, compliance, compatibility, and support. The amount of work depends on the project and the company’s requirements; the essay is Hohndel’s perspective, not a universal rule that all open-source software requires the same productization.
Aligning commercial incentives with shared projects
In a separately reported interview around virtual VMworld, published by Data Center Knowledge in November 2020, Hohndel raised concerns about web-delivered software, licensing incentives, hyperscaler business models, and whether engineering teams give enough attention to security and compliance. These are his views as reported at that time, not verified descriptions of the market in 2026. Data Center Knowledge’s November 2020 interview provides the context for those concerns.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to interpret Hohndel’s VMware-era comments
The cited interviews and writing span 2017–2020. They are useful for understanding Hohndel’s longstanding arguments about community, enterprise participation, and productization, but they should not be treated as a current statement of his role or a fresh assessment of the ecosystem. Data Center Knowledge’s 2020 article gives historical biographical context, while VMware’s author archive identifies him as a former Chief Open Source Officer. The VMware author archive is an archive, not evidence of his present employment.
Best Value
The most durable takeaway is the distinction between relying on open-source code and participating responsibly in the systems that maintain it. Companies can use commercial products when they need vendor-provided integration or support, but that choice is separate from engagement with upstream communities and does not erase the distinction between a project and the product built around it.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
