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In what seems like a restructuring move, the streaming behemoth Netflix has decided to withdraw its support for Conductor, a widely used orchestration engine for microservices that it open sourced back in 2016. This move marks the end of Netflix’s stewardship over one of its most popular open source projects, signifying a shift in its business strategy.
The Conductor project, with over 13,000 GitHub stars, has been a critical part of the infrastructure for thousands of firms around the globe. However, the company has now opted to redirect its resources elsewhere, marking the end of an era.
Netflix’s statement read: “This strategic decision, while difficult, is essential for realigning our resources to better serve our business objectives with our internal Conductor fork.”
The company expressed its gratitude towards the Conductor community for their continued support and contributions over the years.
However, the discontinuation of Netflix’s support doesn’t spell doom for the Conductor project. On the contrary, it marks a new beginning under the stewardship of Orkes, a start-up founded by the engineers who originally developed Conductor during their tenure at Netflix. Orkes plans to take control of the project through a new fork.
Despite the transition, Orkes intends to maintain a close relationship with the Conductor community. They are looking forward to working in partnership with the broader community to ensure that Conductor continues to thrive.
“This isn’t just a continuation of an existing project; it’s also an acceleration of innovation with the community’s interests at its core,” reads Orkes’ announcement.
Indeed, Orkes is spinning this news positively and emphasizes that the roadmap for Conductor will primarily be informed by its users and enthusiasts — the open source community.
In recent developments, Orkes launched its AI Orchestration platform, making it easier for developers to incorporate language models and machine learning inferencing into their workflows. This is largely due to Orkes’ pre-built integrations with services like Azure Open AI, OpenAI, and Google’s Vertex AI.
Alongside the AI Orchestration platform, the company also introduced Human Task, a feature that integrates a human element into AI workflows. This allows for a seamless combination of AI-based decision-making with human oversight at crucial stages in a business process.
In the ever-evolving world of technology, change is the only constant. The decision of Netflix to discontinue its support for Conductor, while surprising, marks a new chapter of innovation and growth under the leadership of Orkes. The future of the Conductor project seems promising, with the users and enthusiasts of the open source community at the helm, driving its direction.
