Fast Forward: We’re here for the maintainers

Fastly has always been committed to empowering everyone to build the open internet. Today, we’re taking one of our biggest leaps forward in supporting the projects — and, more importantly, the people — who make open source possible.

Fastly has delivered over five trillion requests on behalf of the open source projects we support. Whenever you download a Python package, a Ruby gem, or a Rust crate. When you log in to Mastodon to connect with your friends. When you boot Debian or Mint, load fresh metal with your favorite Linux distro — Alma, Alpine, Arch, Rocky, Void. When you download Kubernetes, when 100 million kids code together on Scratch or explore OpenStreetMap to see the world, Fastly helps support it. 

Today, we’re committing to five years of support for the Linux Foundation, its hosted projects, nonprofits, and the maintainers who make it happen.

This pledge represents a commitment of $40M in in-kind services, one of the largest donations in the Linux Foundation’s history. (It’s the largest single commitment of free services to an organization in Fastly’s history). 

And there’s a very good reason for that.

Fastly couldn’t do what it does without the open source platforms that we, and our customers, rely on. When our founders set out to build Fastly 13 years ago, they were fueled by a vision to create a radically different kind of platform—faster and more efficient than its predecessors—by using the right kind of hardware and a wide variety of open source software.

As of 2023, the Linux Foundation is home to over 1,000 active projects and foundations ranging in focus from cloud computing and web development to visual effects and IoT devices. Fastly uses at least 30 projects affiliated with the Linux Foundation in our stack; including the Linux kernel on every Fastly server. Now, each of those projects and more, and the tens of thousands of maintainers who make them go, can tap into Fastly’s instant platform to help ensure that their communities have a reliable, scalable, secure experience.

We want to be transparent about why we do this. Good stewardship of the open source ecosystem is the mission. We want you to consider and use Fastly because the technology is excellent, of course, and because we’re supporting the open ecosystem you care about. Still, a simple request comes with it. The fact that so many developers have told us that this work is a factor in how you make your choices is part of what has made Fast Forward a sustainable initiative long-term at Fastly. So, if this work matters to you, don’t just let us know. Tell everyone!

And if you’re part of a Linux Foundation project and could benefit from Fastly’s services, we can’t wait to meet you — send us an application and join our community.