Tencent becomes a platinum member of the Linux foundation

The Linux Foundation has made Chinese tech giant Tencent a platinum member, it announced today (June 25). The move means Tencent now joins a small and exclusive group of tech companies, including IBM, Huawei, and Cisco, that are regarded as top level members of the foundation.

For Tencent, the announcement is important because it underlines the organizations' strategic focus on open source. For the Linux Foundation, meanwhile, it's a source of hefty support. Tencent are now in a position to provide the foundation with even more support - technologically and financially. It has already, for example, announced that it will be contributing its open source microservices project TARS to the foundation. Expect more to follow.

Given a (relatively) tough year for a number of Silicon Valley companies, and the increasing visibility of other Chinese tech giants Alibaba, perhaps we're seeing the start of a subtle shift in power from California to China.

What is Tencent?

Tencent is a Chinese company worth $500 billion. That's more than Facebook. It owns a huge range of digital services, including China's popular messaging app WeChat and the Tencent Video Service, China's answer to Netflix. According to analysts (and this Guardian profile) Tencent's services are used by "more than two-thirds of the Chinese population". From the Linux Foundation's perspective you can see just how important it is to have an organization of this size supporting it.

It's worth noting that Tencent has supported the Linux foundation for some time. For example, it was one of the founding members of the Linux Foundation's deep learning project, which launched at the start of 2018.

However, with Platinum membership, the company is putting itself in the middle of the emerging intersection between the open source and corporate tech worlds.

What the Linux Foundation and Tencent said about each other

Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation was enthusiastic about the announcement saying:

“Becoming a Platinum member of The Linux Foundation clearly reinforces the importance of open source to Tencent, and its commitment to the open source community... As Tencent’s contributions to open source continue to accelerate, The Linux Foundation is thrilled to work more closely with the company to provide more resources and support to the community. We look forward to collaborating with Tencent to enable more innovation and development to spur the creation of new and exciting technologies in the days ahead.”

Clearly, Zemlin's is keen to underline the importance of how Tencent can support the open source intiatives that the Linux Foundation works hard to cultivate across the tech landscape.

Tencent's general manager Liu Xin was also, as you'd imagine, enthusiastic about the move. "We look forward to strengthening our relationship with the international open source community and promoting innovation in cutting edge technology" he said. "Together, we will help to build a welcoming and energized global open source ecosystem.”

Read the press release.

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