Changelog Interviews NATS and the CNCF kerfuffle
May 16, 2025
Derek Collison, creator of NATS and CEO of Synadia, shares insights into the development of NATS, a cutting-edge messaging system for cloud-native applications. He discusses the tensions with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, exploring the complexities of licensing and governance in open source. The conversation highlights NATS's unique design and its evolution as a solution to Cloud Foundry issues. Derek also touches on the importance of community engagement and collaboration to navigate the challenges of the open-source ecosystem.
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Origin Story of NATS
- NATS started as a side project to replace complex messaging systems in Cloud Foundry at VMware.
- Derek created NATS over a weekend, and early apps still run with the original protocol today.
NATS Enables Location Independence
- NATS enables location-independent messaging, unlike traditional IP-based systems tied to location.
- This design supports push-based communication, which scales better for distributed systems.
NATS Evolution and Go Rewrite
- NATS was originally built just to support Cloud Foundry’s needs before evolving into a broader project.
- The rewrite to Go improved performance and deployment, enabling it to scale with customer demands.