On Building a Container Engine

In an interview with Alban Crequy, co-founder and CTO at Kinvolk GmbH, insights into the rkt container engine reveal its design as a secure, pod-native container solution for Linux, emphasizing composability and alignment with existing technologies like systemd and TPM. Crequy discusses the project's success in community contributions, acknowledging challenges in managing fluctuating contributor numbers and open issues, a common issue in open-source projects. He compares rkt to Docker, highlighting rkt's flexibility in swapping isolation environments and its daemonless architecture, which appeals to systems architects. The conversation also touches on the transition from ACI to OCI image standards, the influence of CoreOS's Container Linux philosophy on other operating systems, and the use of Semaphore for testing due to its support for a full VM environment. Crequy expresses enthusiasm for technologies like eBPF and Kubernetes, indicating a bright future for containerization and the potential for innovative developments in the space.