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IBM recently released a new Open Source Cloud Guide designed to outline three main things: how different cloud environments use open source, a variety of open source projects for hybrid cloud environments, and use cases important to hybrid cloud environments. 

Developers have been encouraged to not only use the guide but to contribute their own ideas as well. The guide is created specifically for those who want to develop cloud applications. 

Todd Moore, vice president of Open Tech at IBM, toldZDNetthat the guide grew out of discussions the company was having with developers building hybrid cloud applications.

"IBM is all about creating a cloud platform that enables choice and interoperability for our partners, clients, and the developer community. We are leaning into our new approach of working with the ecosystem to collaboratively source innovations and learnings for the good of the community," Moore said. 

"The Open Source Cloud Guide presents an agnostic view of open source cloud tools that we know developers, who want to build for choice and interoperability, can use. We are starting this as an ongoing project and are asking that developers contribute to it over time. This way, we can create a living resource for this information that grows as the technology develops."

Moore added that by open sourcing the guide, the hope is for developers to both use and contribute to the learnings and use cases so that there can be one centralized location for these living materials. 

He noted that IBM calls them living because they can continually be added to and updated. 

"We want to know what open source projects developers think are useful and should be included. This will help prevent blind spots, and collaboration here is key. We hope that this type of information sharing... can strengthen the ecosystem as a whole," Moore explained. 

Part of what led to the effort around the guide was an O'Reilly survey commissioned by IBM last year, which found that developers strongly believe in honing their skills around the open source tools that underly every major cloud platform -- instead of solely focusing on building skills for a proprietary cloud. 

"In fact, 65% of respondents to the same survey agreed that contributions to open source projects impress potential employers and result in better professional opportunities. Working within the open source community and sharing information across teams and organizations enables us all to do our best work," he said. 

IBM said the guide was "an agnostic view of open source cloud tools" that developers can use. 

Chris Ferris, CTO of open tech at IBM, wrote that the company's goal is to give the global developer ecosystem one place to focus on their open-source development efforts when developing for specific use cases related to multicloud development.

The guide is broken down into four technical areas:Artificial intelligenceAPIs, big data, and containers. 

Open Source

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