[susi22]

Thanks for you answers so far. Q: Why is it that Linux is >10 years behind with Containers/Zones?

From what I understand is that ZFS was so slowly ported to Linux due to the license problems. But why were Zones not quickly adapted?

[chubot]

What's interesting to me is that it seems history is repeating itself. As mentioned, OpenVZ and Linux VServer existed in the 90's, but they never made it into the mainline. So really this is the second try for Linux.

Basically I think it is a consequence of containers/sandboxing being a very "commercial" technology, even though they are open source. The main users are hosting providers, and there's a significant amount of money in that business.

In the 90's there was a hosting "land rush" with all of these companies like 1and1 and dreamhost selling shared hosting on Linux. They were the ones that developed Linux VServer and OpenVZ apparently, and I think the pace was too great to get it into the mainline. Interested in any first-hand knowledge people have.

And in the 2010's there is a PaaS "land rush", with all of these companies building on AWS and other IaaS, while needing containerization like LXC. The OP's article is calling for increased support in distros -- I think the same lack of time for cooperation is happening. Heroku, Cloud Foundry, dot Cloud, ActiveState, etc. are all using the same thing essentially, but there's a big land grab, so they are all maintaining proprietary and complex user space configuration.

The kernel features like the various namespaces are just about finished trickling in I think; that doesn't mean they're secure though.

[wmf]

Linux-VServer and Virtuozzo/OpenVZ were developed many years ago; containers took a decade to get into mainline due to Linux's development process. The cathedral tends to move faster.