I am writing to ask if at Red Hat you would be interested to collaborate on container image standard improvements under Open Container Initiative (https://opencontainers.org/).

At Huawei we identified that container image specification lacks compatibility requirements. 

For instance if you run a container that requires an NVIDIA GPU then you have to make sure that CUDA library in the container matches the CUDA driver on the host. The required version of the driver could be expressed in the container image. There are plenty of similar use cases when it comes to kernel configuration, boot args, modules or out-of-tree drivers.

More details could be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lzwh8DGMu5vXXHwJmnewYIMffkcOEvH8owX4UYjRcw0/edit?usp=sharing

I think OpenShift and its Machine Config operator could benefit from this by influencing worker node configuration based on the image specification, which would mean that customers would also benefit.

I am forming a working group under OCI and believe this initiative should not come only from one company since that will be a global standard.

I prepared a template for a working group that will be voted on by the Technical Oversight Board (https://github.com/opencontainers/tob).

The voting will take place once I create a PR.

I think, after the working group is approved, we would need 2-3 months to come up with the first standard and a client tool to build and validate the specification.

If you are interested we can schedule a meeting to discuss this.

Regards,

Marcin