EdgeX Foundry: Linux's New IoT Initiative

The Linux Foundation recently announced that it will be creating a new open-source project, EdgeX Foundry. This project takes aim at the growing scope of Internet of Things technology by attempting to build a common, open IoT solution framework.

The solution to Internet of Things troubles?

The intent of EdgeX Foundry is not to restrain IoT development or hinder adoption, but rather to create a standard framework to ease the development process for IoT projects. Foundry’s specific goals are to build and promote EdgeX as a common IoT platform; to enable and encourage the creation of an IoT ecosystem utilizing plug-and-play components; to certify components; and to facilitate the creation of components and projects through collaboration and cooperation among participating developers.

Those participating developers are the key to EdgeX Foundry’s potential: over 50 companies have joined the project as founding members, including AMD, Dell, and Ubuntu. These companies represent a wide range of development interests, making EdgeX Foundry well situated to benefit a broad swathe of the developer community. Dell alone will be providing over a dozen microservices and more than 125,000 lines of code in the form of its FUSE source code; as other companies provide their own contributions, Linux’s efforts stand to become ever more versatile and beneficial.

Of course, this is just one effort to address the problems of IoT development. There are other developers who are pursuing their own IoT solutions, and there may be challenges too difficult for even such a wide-ranging attempt at a solution to solve.

What do you think? Is this something that IoT development needs, or will it fail to effectively address the problems facing IoT developers? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.