Broadcom's CNCF Donation: Community Reactions and Open-Source Trust

In the latest episode of "Big Tech Tries to Make Amends," Broadcom is back in the spotlight — not for innovation, but for damage control. The company recently announced the donation of a Kubernetes diagnostic tool to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), painting it as a gesture of goodwill and commitment to open source. Sounds great, right? Not to everyone. For many in the Kubernetes and open source communities, this move doesn't feel like generosity. It feels like sleight of hand. Let's back up a bit. Broadcom acquired VMware in 2022 — a massive deal that shook up the enterprise IT world. Along with VMware came a portfolio of developer-loved tools, including Bitnami and the open source project Harbor. Fast-forward to 2025, and Broadcom's stewardship has already left a sour taste in many mouths. The decision to pull Bitnami's public container images from Docker Hub earlier this year — a move that broke CI/CD pipelines overnight and sparked outrage across dev circles — still lingers in collective memory. So when Broadcom now turns around to make headlines about supporting open source, it's not surprising that folks are suspicious. ## What's Actually Being Donated? Broadcom's big announcement centers on donating a Kubernetes tool to CNCF, specifically an etcd-diagnosis tool — a utility meant to help debug and monitor etcd, the key-value store Kubernetes relies on. On paper, it's useful. In practice? The community isn't sure it even matters. And here's where things get sticky. One Redditor was quick to point out that much of the article announcing this "donation" also highlighted Harbor — a project originally contributed by VMware to CNCF back in 2018. That was years before Broadcom showed up. So why is it being included in a press release in 2025? As one commenter put it bluntly: *"They can't donate it all over again. They had nothing to do with it, so it's moot to even mention."* Ouch. Others didn't hold back either. One user reimagined the headline entirely: *"Broadcom desperately trying to find low-effort ways to build goodwill with the community they are actively screwing."* The language is harsh, but the sentiment? Widely shared. ## The Pattern of Corporate Dumping Dig a little deeper, and what seems like a kind gesture starts to feel more like cost-cutting wrapped in open-source ribbon. According to multiple users in the Kubernetes community, Broadcom's open source contributions often follow a similar pattern: they eliminate internal teams responsible for maintaining tools, and then toss the codebase over to CNCF or another foundation. The goal isn't community enrichment — it's internal savings. "They still use them a little too," one developer noted, referencing the donated tools. "They just don't want to pay for any engineers working on whatever they've donated." It's the software equivalent of dropping off a used couch at Goodwill — except in this case, Broadcom is hoping someone else picks up the maintenance bill. And make no mistake, the community notices. Developers are quick to spot when a project has gone stale. One user shared the GitHub commit history for Kapp (another tool recently associated with VMware): a six-month lull in activity, followed by a couple of "suspiciously timed" commits just before donation. It's hard not to interpret that as last-minute cleanup for PR optics. ## Why This Rubs People the Wrong Way The Kubernetes and wider open source community isn't just being cynical. Their distrust is rooted in real, recent experience. The Bitnami pullback wasn't just inconvenient — it was a gut punch to teams who relied on those containers being available. Broadcom offered private access, but only behind paywalls or via proprietary platforms. The free and open nature of the project was lost. That kind of move doesn't just hurt adoption; it breaks trust. Combine that with skyrocketing VMware licensing costs post-acquisition, and the feeling is that Broadcom is turning enterprise software into a gated community — one where only those with deep pockets get to play. One Redditor summed up the corporate strategy in three words: *"Embrace, extend, extinguish."* It's an old Microsoft-era playbook: adopt an open tool, modify it enough to suit internal needs, and quietly snuff out the broader community use case. It's not even clear Broadcom wants to be a good open source citizen. Another commenter claimed, "Broadcom supports open source only to retain top engineers who would leave if not free to do so." In other words, open source is tolerated — not championed. ## So What's the Real Cost Here? It's tempting to shrug off the drama. After all, companies make strategic shifts all the time. But when those shifts impact the reliability and longevity of widely used infrastructure, the ripple effects are real. Kubernetes is foundational to modern cloud computing. When tools around it are suddenly deprecated, forked, or locked away, the consequences are felt across countless teams, from small startups to major enterprises. And when large corporations like Broadcom try to use open source contributions as a marketing tool — without actually investing in the people, maintenance, and transparency required — they don't just hurt their reputation. They hurt the ecosystem. This isn't about one tool. It's about culture. ## Can Broadcom Recover Community Trust? It's not impossible, but it won't be easy. If Broadcom wants to regain credibility in the open source world, it needs to do more than publish puff pieces. It needs to: - **Be transparent** about why it's donating projects — and whether it still uses them internally. - **Invest in actual community engagement**, not just legal handoffs. - **Support maintainers**, not just drop code and walk away. - **Stop monetizing what used to be freely accessible** without offering equivalent value. And, perhaps most importantly, they need to stop pretending these moves are altruistic. The dev community is too smart, too interconnected, and too vocal to fall for that. ## The Bottom Line Broadcom's donation to CNCF may technically count as open source support, but in spirit, it feels more like reputation laundering. When a company's recent history is filled with broken promises, pulled products, and price hikes, a one-off code drop doesn't reset the scoreboard. Developers don't want polished press releases. They want stable tools, transparent roadmaps, and respect for the community. Until Broadcom proves it's capable of delivering that, every donation will be met with side-eyes and skepticism. And honestly? That skepticism feels earned.