Kelsey Hightower, AWS's Eswar Bala on Open Source's Evolution

In a candid episode of The New Stack Makers, Kubernetes pioneer Kelsey Hightower and AWS’s Eswar Bala explored the evolving relationship between enterprise cloud providers and open source software at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon London. Hightower highlighted open source's origins as a grassroots movement challenging big vendors, and shared how it gave people—especially those without traditional tech credentials—a way into the industry. Recalling his own journey, Hightower emphasized that open source empowered individuals through contribution over credentials. Bala traced the early development of Kubernetes and his own transition from building container orchestration systems to launching AWS’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), driven by growing customer demand. The discussion, recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, touched on how open source is now central to enterprise cloud strategies, with AWS not only contributing but creating projects like Karpenter, Cedar, and Kro. Both speakers agreed that open source's collaborative model—where companies build in public and customers drive innovation—has reshaped the cloud ecosystem, turning former tensions into partnerships built on community-driven progress. Learn more from The New Stack about the relationship between enterprise cloud providers and open source software: The Metamorphosis of Open Source: An Industry in Transition The Complex Relationship Between Cloud Providers and Open Source How Open Source Has Turned the Tables on Enterprise Software Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.