James Governor, Redmonk | DockerCon 2020
>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of DockerCon Live 2020. Brought to you by Docker and its ecosystem partners. >> Okay Jenny, great to see you again. >> Good to see you. >> James Governor, nail on the Keynote there. Chat was phenomenal. That was pre-recorded but James is also in the chat stream. A lot of good conversations. That hit home for me that keynote. One, because memory lane was going down right into the 80s when it was a revolution. And we got him in the green room here. James Governor, welcome. >> James is here, hi James. >> Here we go. >> Fresh off the keynote. >> It's always a revolution. (John laughs) >> Well, in the 80s, I used to love your talk. A couple of key points I want to share and get your thoughts on was just to some highlights for the crowd is one, you walk through. Some of the key inflection points that I think were instrumental and probably some other ones depending on your perspective of where you were in the industry at that time. Whether you were a systems programmer or a networking guy, there was a proprietary world and it was a revolution back then. And UNIX was owned by AT&T if no one remembers. You couldn't even use the word. You had to trade market. So we actually had to call it XINU which is UNIX spelled backwards in all the text and whatnot. And even open source software freeware was kind of illegal. MIT did some work, Northeastern and Berkeley and other schools. It was radical back then so-- >> Yeah, we've come a long way for sure. I think that for me that was one of the things that I wanted to really point to in the keynote was that yes we have definitely come a long way and development culture is about open culture. >> I think the thing that I like to point out especially hate to sound like I'm old but I am. But I lived through that and the younger generation coming and have all these new tools. And I got to say not that I walked through to school in the snow with no shoes on but it's a pretty cool developer environment now. But remember things were proprietary back then. If you start to see the tea leaves now, I look at the world, you see these silos. You see silos that's kind of, they're not nestle proprietary but they might necessarily be open. So you kind of have a glimpse of open source on these projects and these companies. Whether they're tech companies, it feels open but it might not be. It could be walled garden. It could be data being hoarded. So as data opens up, this is interesting to me because I want to get your thoughts on this because in a way it feels proprietary but technically it's not proprietary. What's your thoughts on this? Because this is going to be the next 20 years of evolution. What's your thoughts? >> I think the productivity wins. Whoever packages technology in a way that makes it most productive for people. That's what wins. And open source, what's productive. It is very accessible. It enabled new waves. Get installed and you've got a package from... You got access to just a world of open-source. A world of software that was a big revolution. And I guess the cloud sort of came next and I think that's been one of the big shifts. You talk about proprietary. What matters is how easy you make things to people to do their work. And in that regard, obviously Amazon is in fact a bigger distribution network. Makes technology super consumable by so many people. I guess I would say that open is good and important but it's not the only thing. As you say, data is a lock-in and it's right and people are choosing services that make them productive. Nobody worries about whether Amazon Lambda is proprietary. They just know that they can build companies or businesses or business processes on it. >> You know it's interesting back in the day just to kind of segue with the next topic. We were fighting proprietary operating systems, UNIX and others. We're also fighting for proprietary Network protocol stacks. SNA was owned by IBM. DECnet was digital, the number one network. And then TCP/IP and OpenSan's interconnect came out. That's the OSI model for us old ones. That set the table. That changed the face of everything. It really enabled a lot. So when I see containers, what Docker did early on the pioneering phases of Docker containers, it unleashed a new reality of coolness and scale and capabilities. And then in comes Kubernetes and in comes micro services. So this path is showing some real strength for new kinds of capabilities. So how does a developer navigate all this because data lock-in does it a data plane seems to be a control point. What are we fighting now in your opinion? shouldn't say we're fighting but what are we trying to avoid if operating systems was for closing opportunities and network protocol stacks before closing in the past? What do you see as barriers that need to be broken down in the open source world around going down this great path of micro services, decomposed applications, highly cohesive architectures? >> Honestly there's enough work to be getting on with without like fighting someone in that regard. I mean we're fighting against technical debt. I just don't think that people are serrated about fighting against proprietary anymore. I think that's less than a concern. Open-source technology is great. It's how most work gets done in our industry today. So you mentioned Kubernetes and certainly Docker. Though we did a phenomenal job of packaging up and experience that map to see CICD. That map to the developer workplace people like do. Phenomenal job and I think that for me at least when I look at where we are as an industry, it's all about productivity. So there are plenty of interesting new platforms. I think in my keynote, that's my question. I'm less interested in microservices than I am in distributed work. I'm interested in one of the tools that are going to enable us to become more productive, solve more problems, build more applications and get better at building software. So I think that's my sort of focus. There will always be lock-in. And I think you will also have technologies mitigate against that. I mean clear messages today from Docker about supporting multiple clouds. For a while at least multiclouds seem like something only the kind waivers were interested in but increasingly we're seeing organizations where that is definitely part of how they're using the cloud. And again I think very often it's within specific areas. And so we see organizations that are using particular clouds for different things. And we'll see more of that. >> And the productivity. I love the passion, love that in the keynote. That was loud and clear. Two key points I want to get your reaction on that. You mentioned one was inclusion. Including more people, not seeing news. It's kind of imperative. And also virtual work environments, virtual events. You kind of made a highlight there. So again people are distributed remote first. It's an opportunity to be productive. Can you share your thoughts on those two points? One is, as we're distributed, that's going to open the aperture of more engagement. More people coming in. So code of conduct not as a file you must read or some rule. Culturally embracing a code of conduct. And then also, virtual events, virtual groups convening like we're doing here. >> Yeah I mean for me at least Allison McMillan from github and she just gave such a great demo at the recent sunlight event where she finished and she was like, it was all about, I want to be able to put the kids to bed for a nap and then go code. And I think that's sort of thinking people band around the phrase ruling this together but I mean certainly parenting is a team sport. But I think it's interesting we're not welcome. It was interesting that was looking at the chat, going through, I was being accused of being woke. I was being accused of being a social justice warrior. But look at the math. The graph is pretty clear. Women are not welcomed in tech. And that means we're wasting 50% of available resource to us. And we're treating people like shit. So I thought I underplayed that in the talk actually. Something like, "Oh, why is he complaining about Linus?" Well, the fact is that Linus himself admitted he needed to change his persona in order to just be more modern and welcoming in terms of building software and building communities. So look we've got people from around the world. Different cultural norms. All of the women I know who work in tech suffer so much from effectively daily harassment. Their bonafides are challenged. These are things that we need to change because women are brilliant. I'm not letting you signaling or maybe I am. The fact is that women are amazing at software and we do a terrible job of supporting them. So women of other nationalities, we're not going to be traveling as much. I think you can also grow. No we can't keep flying around as much. Make an industry where single parents can participate more effectively. Where we could take advantage of that. There're 200 million people in Nigeria. That hunger to engage. We won't even give them a visa and then we may not be treating them right. I just think we need an industry reset. I think from a we need to travel less. We need to do better work. And we need to be more welcoming in order that that could be the case. >> Yeah, there's no doubt a reset is here and you look at the COVID crisis is forcing that function there because one, people are resetting and reinventing and trying to figure out a growth strategy. Whether it's a business or teams. And what's interesting is new roles and new responsibilities is going to emerge and I think you're right about the women in tech. I completely agree and have evidence myself and reported on it ad nauseam. But the thing is data trumps opinion. And the data is clear on this issue. So if anyone will call you a social justice warrior I just say pound sand and tell them that go on their way. And just look at the data and clear. And also the field is getting wider. When I was in computer science major back in the day, it was male-dominated yes but it was very narrow. Wasn't as broad as it is now. You can do things so much more and in fact in Kelsey Hightower's talk, he talks to persona developers. The ones that love to learn and ones that don't want to learn anything. Just want to code and do their thing. And ones that care about just app development and ones that just want to get in and sling k-8 around like it's nobody's business or work with APIs, work with infrastructure. Some just want to write code. So there's more and more surface area in computer science and coding. Or not even computer science, it's just coding, developing. >> Well, I mean it's a bigger industry. We've got clearly all sorts of challenges that need to be solved. And the services that we've got available are incredible. I mean if you look at the work of companies like Netlify in terms of developer experience. You look at the emergence of JamStack and the productivity that we're seeing there, it's a really exciting time in the industry. >> No doubt about that. >> And as I say I mean it's an exciting time. It's a scary time. But I think that we're moving to a world of more distributed work. And that's my point about open source and working on code bases from different places and what the CapCloud can enable. We can work in a different way and we don't all need to be in San Francisco, London, or Berlin as I said in the Keynote. >> I love the vision there and the passion. I totally agree with it. I think that's a whole another distributed paradigm that's going to move up the stack if you will and software. I think it's going to be codified in cloud native and cloud scale creates new services. I mean it's the virtual world. You mentioned virtual events. Groups convening like the 67,000 people coming together virtually here at DockerCon. Large, small one-on-ones group dynamics are a piece of it. So share your thoughts on virtual events and certainly it's people are now just kicking the tires, learning. You do a zoom, you do a livestream. You do some chat. It's going to evolve and I think it's going to look more like a CICD pipeline and anything else. As you start to bring media together, we get 43 sessions here. Why not make it a hundred sessions? So I think this is going to be one of those learning environments where it's not linear, it's different. What's your vision of all this if you had to give advice for the folks out there? Not event plans, with people who want to gather groups and be productive. What's your thinking on this? >> Well, it sort of has to happen. I mean there are a lot of people doing good work in this regard. Patrick Dubois, founder of DevOps days. He's doing some brilliant work delineating. Just what are all the different platforms? What does the streaming platform look like that you can use? Obviously you've got one here with theCUBE. Yeah, I mean I think the numbers are pretty clear. I mean Microsoft Build had 245,000 registered attendees and I think something that might have been to begin. The patterns are slightly different. It's not like they're going to be there the whole time but the opportunity to meet people where they are, I think is something that we shouldn't ignore. Particularly in a world not everyone again has the privilege of being able to travel. You're in a different country or as I say perhaps your life circumstances mean you can't travel. From an accessibility perspective, clearly virtual events offer an opportunity that we haven't fully nailed. I think Microsoft performance in this regard has been super interesting. They were already moving that way and Kobe just slammed it up to another level. What they did with Build recently was actually, I mean they're a media company, right? But certainly developed a focused media company. So I think you'll be okay. You're about the business of software John. Don't worry Microsoft don't give you some space there. (John and James laughing) We're under the radar at theCUBE 365 for the folks who are watching this. This is our site that we built with our software. So we're open and Docker was instrumental and I think the Docker captains were also very instrumental and trying to help us figure out the best way to preserve the content value. I personally think we're in this early stage of, content and community are clearly go hand in hand and I think as you look at the chat, some of the names that are on there. Some of the comments, really there's a new flywheel of production and this to me is the ultimate collaboration when you have these distinct groups coming together. And I think it's going to just be a data dream where people aren't the product, they're actually a contributor. And I think this open source framework that you're talking about is going to be certainly just going to evolve rapidly. I think it's just not even scratching the surface. I just think this is going to be pretty massive. And services whatever you want to define that. It could be an API to anything. It's going to be essentially the scale point. I mean why have a monolith piece of software running something. Something Microsoft teams will work well here. Zoom will work well there but ultimately what's in it for me the person? This is the key question. Developers just want to develop. You're going to hear that throughout the day. Kelsey Hightower brings up some great points in his session and Amanda silver at Microsoft, she had a quote on one of her videos. She said, "App developers are the first responders "in this crisis." And that's the first time I've heard someone say that out loud and that hits home for me because it's true. And right now app developers are one of the front lines. They're providing the app support. They're providing to the practitioners in the field. This is something that's not really written about in the press. What's your reaction to app developers are the first responders in this crisis. >> Well I mean first I think it's important to pay tribute to people that actually are first responders. Writing code can make us responsive but let's not forget there are people that are lacking PPE and they are on the frontline. So not precise manner but I might frame it slightly differently. But certainly what the current situation has shown us is productivity is super important. Target has made huge investments in building out its own software development capabilities. So they used to be like 70% external 30% internal and they turn that round to like 80% internal 20 external. And they've been turning on a dime and well there's so much going on at the moment. I'm like talking about target then I'm remembering what's happening in Minneapolis today. But anyway we'll talk about that. But yeah organizations are responding quickly. Look at the numbers that Shopify is happening because all sorts of business is something like we need to be an online business. What's the quickest way to do that. And Shopify was able to package something up in a way that they they could respond to challenges. Huge social challenges. I'm a big believer the future's unwritten at this point and I think there's a lot of problems out there you point out and the first responders are there I agree. I'm just thinking that there's got to be a better path for all of us. And this brings up the whole new roles and responsibilities around this new environment and I know you're doing a lot of research. Can you share some thoughts on what you're kind of working on now James? That's important, I'll see what's trending here at DockerCon is. Compose the relationship with Microsoft, we've got security, Dockers now, multicloud approach, making it easier, that's their bread and butter. That's what they're known for. They kind of going back to that roots of why they pioneered in the first place. So as that continues ease-of-use, what's your focus area right now that you're researching that you could share with the audience? >> Well, I mean I'd say this year for me I've got probably three key areas. One is what's called GitOps. So it's the notion that you're using Git as a system of record. So that started off randomly making changes, you have an audit trail. You begin to have some sort of sense of compliance in software changes. I think the idea of everything has to be by a sort of a pull request. That automation model is super thing to me. So I've been looking at that. A lot of development teams are using those approaches. Observability is a huge trend. We're moving to the idea of testing and production. The kind of stuff that's been evangelized so successfully by charity majors honeycomb. It's super exciting to me and it's true because in effect, you're always testing in production, your dev environment. I mean we used to have this idea that you'd have a Dev and a Dev stage. You're have a staging environment. The only environment that really matters is where the rubber meets the road. And that is deployment. So I think that having having better tools for that is one of the areas I'm looking at. So how are tools innovating that area? And it won't be the thing that this is my own personal thing. I've been talking about progressive delivery which is asking a question about reducing risk by really understanding the blast radius of the service to be able to roll it out to specific use of populations first. Understanding who they are and enrolling it up so it's the idea that like maybe you brought something out to your employees first. Maybe you are in California and you roll something out in Tokyo knowing that not many people are using that service. It is a live environment but people are not going to be adversely affected if it happens. So Canary's Blue-Green deployments and also experimentation. This is sort of one of the areas I'm being sort of pulled towards. It's sort of product management and how that's really converging with software development. I feel like that's one of the things I haven't fully, I mean I think it's when they have research focused but you have to respond to new information. Anyhow, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the world of product management. It's those companies to be most respect in terms of companies that are crushing it in the digital economy. They have such a strong product management focused. Everything is driven by product managers that understand technology and that's an exciting shift. The one that I'm paying greater attention. >> You do some great work and I love the focus on productivity software development. Getting those app developers out there and it's interesting. I just think that it's such an exciting time. It's almost intoxicating. Some people drinking on Twitter online and having beers because they're in different time zone. But if you look up and down the action that's going on, you got at the application developers side, all the things you were mentioning services. But when you look at the cloud side, you got almost this operating system reset. It's a systems architecture. So you have the hall and that's up and down. The middle of the stack to the bottom, you have this operating systems thinking and evolution. And then you got at the top, the pure software developers. And this is again to me the big aha moment. For the industry there's a true opportunity to scale that in unbelievable ways. And you don't have to pick a side. You can do a top of the stack bottom stack. So I think kubernetes and micro services really bring this whole enablement piece to the table. And that fascinates me and I think that's going to change what the apps will look like. It'll give more productivity and then making the internet programmable unit, that's new systems. So that seems to be the trend. You're a systems guy, your girl or you're a developer. How do you see that evolving? Do you get to that level? >> Developer experience is not necessarily the key value of Kubernetes. It's supremely flexible sort of system. It does offer you that portability. But I think what I'm seeing now is how people are taking Kubernetes and kind of thinking, so you've got VMware, acquires Heptio, brings Pivotal into the fold, starting about what that platform looks like. I think Pivotal with cloud foundry did a great job of thinking through operator experience. Operator experience is not the same as developer experience. I think we're going to see a bit more specialization of roles. Meanwhile at that point, you've got the cloud players all doing pretty awesome job supporting Kubernetes. But it gives that portability promise. So I think for me, one of the things is not expecting everyone to do everything. It's like Kelsey said, some people just want to come into work and do their job and they're super important. And so VMware I think a history of certification of application environments. So of them it's sort of quite--and certification of humans. It's quite natural that they would be somebody that would think about how do we make Kurbenetes more consumable and packaged in a way that more people take advantage of it. Docker was such a phenomenon and now seeing how that sort of evolving into that promise of portability is beginning to be realized. So I think the specialization, the pendulum is going to swing back just a little bit. >> I think it's just great timing and congratulations on all the work and thanks for taking the time for participating in DockerCon with the Keynote. Taking time out of your day and coming in and doing this live interview. The chat looks good. Hit some great, get some fans in there. It's a great opportunity and I think Docker as the pioneers, pivoting in a new direction, it's all about developer productivity and James you've been on it. @monkchips is his Twitter handle, follow him, hit him up. I'm John Furrier here in the studio for DockerCon 2020. Ginebra CEO and you got Brett Fisher on the captain's channel. If you go to the site, you'll see the calendar. Jump into any session you want. They'll be live on the time or on-demand instantly. TheCUBE track has a series of enemies. You've got Amazon, we got Microsoft, get some great guests, great practitioners that are literally having an impact on society. So thanks for watching. James, thanks for spending the time. >> Thank you very much John. >> Okay James Governor, founder of Monkchips, great firm, great person-- >> RedMonk, RedMonk is the company. Monkchips is the Twitter. >> Redmonk, Monkchips. RedMonk, RedMonk. >> RedMonk is the company. >> RedMonk, RedMonk. >> @monkchips is his Twitter handle and RedMonk is the firm, thank you for the correction. Okay more coverage DockerCon after this short break. Stay with us. The next segment is coming up. Stay with us here at theCUBE DockerCon. (gentle music)
SUMMARY :
Brought to you by Docker but James is also in the chat stream. It's always a revolution. Some of the key inflection points in the keynote was that and the younger generation coming And I guess the cloud sort of came next that need to be broken down and experience that map to see CICD. love that in the keynote. in order that that could be the case. And the data is clear on this issue. and the productivity But I think that we're moving and I think it's going to and I think as you look at the chat, and the first responders I feel like that's one of the things The middle of the stack to the bottom, the pendulum is going to and congratulations on all the work RedMonk, RedMonk is the company. RedMonk, RedMonk. and RedMonk is the firm,
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