Join CNCF and Buoyant on November 9 in Salt Lake City for the premiere of a new documentary celebrating a decade of Linkerd, the evolution of service mesh technology, and the people who helped make it possible.
Every open source project has a story. Behind the code are people with ideas, challenges to overcome, decisions to make, and a shared belief that technology can be better when built together.
This November, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), in partnership with Buoyant, is excited to premiere The Linkerd Story: The People Behind The Service Mesh, a new documentary exploring the origins, evolution, and community behind one of cloud native’s pioneering open source projects.
From the engineering challenges of Twitter’s early infrastructure to the creation of the first service mesh, the documentary takes viewers behind the scenes of Linkerd’s journey, told through the experiences of the creators, maintainers, contributors, and end users who have helped shape it.
This documentary explores a story beyond technology. It’s about the relationships, persistence, and collective effort that turn an idea into an open source project used by organizations around the world.
From an engineering challenge to a pioneering open source project
Linkerd’s story begins at Twitter, where engineers were tackling the challenges of running increasingly complex distributed systems. Their experiences with Finagle, a library for managing communication between services, helped inspire a new approach to application networking.
That approach became Linkerd, helping establish the service mesh category and changing how teams could manage reliability, security, and observability across distributed applications.
The documentary explores the technical decisions that shaped the project, including its evolution into a Kubernetes-focused service mesh, the adoption of Rust for lightweight sidecar proxies, and the ongoing challenge of making complex infrastructure simpler to operate.
Through firsthand accounts, viewers discover the experimentation, challenges, and collaboration behind these milestones.
The people who make open source possible
At the heart of the documentary is the Linkerd community.
Contributors share stories of friendships, shared challenges, and the responsibility that comes with building technology organizations depend on.
The film highlights the role of maintainers, ambassadors, and end users in helping the project grow, from contributing code and documentation to sharing knowledge and supporting others.
It also explores Linkerd’s journey to becoming a CNCF graduated project and the importance of open governance, collaboration, and long-term sustainability.
The documentary brings these themes to life through real-world experiences, including how Texas-based grocery retailer H-E-B used Linkerd while accelerating the rollout of its curbside services.
These stories demonstrate that the impact of open source extends beyond technology, reaching the people and communities who depend on the systems it helps power.
Ten years of Linkerd, and looking ahead
As Linkerd marks a decade of development, the documentary reflects on what it takes to build an open source project that lasts.
One contributor shares an ambition for Linkerd to continue for another hundred years, a reminder that long-term success depends not only on technical innovation but also on the people who sustain it.
It’s a theme that reflects CNCF’s mission to support sustainable, community-driven cloud native projects.
Join us for the documentary premiere
We’re excited to share this story with the cloud native community at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026.
Presented by CNCF in partnership with Buoyant, The Linkerd Story: The People Behind The Service Mesh offers a behind-the-scenes look at the people, decisions, and experiences that helped shape a decade of service mesh innovation.
Premiere details
- Date: Monday, November 9, 2026
- Time: 6:30 PM MST
- Location: Salt Palace Convention Center | Level 1 | Room 151
- Event: KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026
Whether you’ve contributed to Linkerd, used it in production, or are curious about the people behind cloud native innovation, we invite you to join us for this special premiere.
Come celebrate the people behind the service mesh. We look forward to seeing you in Salt Lake City!
Learn more about Linkerd and explore the CNCF project landscape.