in menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Specifications 2 See also 3 References 4 External links Toggle the table of contents Open Container Initiative 8 languages العربية Čeština Deutsch Español Suomi Français 日本語 Українська Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Open standards software project The Open Container Initiative ( OCI ) is a Linux Foundation project, started in June 2015 by Docker , CoreOS , and the maintainers of appc (short for "App Container") to design open standards for operating system-level virtualization ( containers ). [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] At launch, OCI was focused on Linux containers and subsequent work has extended it to other operating systems. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] Specifications [ edit ] There are currently three OCI specifications in development and use: the Runtime Specification (runtime-spec), the Image Specification (image-spec), and the Distribution Specification (distribution-spec). The OCI organization includes the development of runc , which is the reference implementation of the runtime-spec, [ 7 ] [ 8 ] a container runtime that implements their specification and serves as a basis for other higher-level tools. runc was first released in July 2015 as version 0.0.1 [ 9 ] and it reached version 1.0.0 on June 22, 2021. [ 10 ] The OCI Image Format Project was split out from the Runtime Project into its own specification on March 23, 2016. [ 11 ] The image-spec is a software shipping container image format spec (OCI Image Format) that reached version 1.0.0 on July 19, 2017. [ 12 ] The OCI Distribution Spec Project defines the distribution-spec, an API protocol to facilitate and standardize the distribution of content. The distribution-spec was created on March 8, 2018, from a Proposal for a JSON Registry API V2.1. [ 13 ] The distribution-spec reached version 1.0.0 on April 26, 2021. [ 14 ] See also [ edit ] Containerization (computing) References [ edit ] ^ "Docker and CoreOS unite to start the Open Container Project and standardize runtime, image format" . Venture Beat. 22 June 2015. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ "Open Container Initiative Finds Footing In Linux Foundation" . InformationWeek. 8 December 2015. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14 . Retrieved 2020-01-15 . ^ "Launch of Open Container Initiative" . DockerCon 15. 26 June 2015 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ "Container platform tools on Windows" . Microsoft. 15 March 2023. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ "runj: a new OCI Runtime for FreeBSD Jails" . Samuel Karp. 16 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ "ocijail Experimental, proof-of-concept OCI-compatible runtime for jails" . Doug Rabson. 16 November 2022. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ "opencontainers/runc: CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification" . GitHub. Archived from the original on 2020-01-17 . Retrieved 2020-01-15 . ^ opencontainers. "runc/runc.8.md at master · opencontainers/runc · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2022-01-21 . Retrieved 2020-01-15 . ^ opencontainers (2015-07-16). "Release v0.0.1: runc/libcontainer release · opencontainers/runc · GitHub" . Github.com . Retrieved 2020-01-15 . ^ opencontainers (2021-05-22). "Release runc 1.0 -- "A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to." · opencontainers/runc · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2024-10-05 . Retrieved 2024-10-05 . ^ opencontainers (2016-03-23). "Release v0.1: image-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ opencontainers (2017-07-19). "Release v1.0.0: image-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ Docker (2014-11-06). "Proposal: JSON Registry API V2.1 · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . ^ opencontainers (2021-04-26). "Release v1.0.0: distribution-spec release · opencontainers/image-spec · GitHub" . Github.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-01 . Retrieved 2023-09-01 . External links [ edit ] Official website Open Container Initiative on GitHub List of OCI Runtime Implementations from the Runtime Specification repository v t e Linux Foundation Sub-foundations Cloud Native Computing Foundation Cloud Foundry OpenJS Foundation LF Energy Presto Foundation Open Source Security Foundation Overture Maps Foundation Initiatives Open Container Initiative Core Infrastructure Initiative OpenAPI Initiative Projects Open Mainframe Project SONiC Hyperledger Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open_Container_Initiative&oldid=1320350412 " Categories : Linux containerization Linux Foundation projects Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia This page was last edited on 4 November 2025, at 04:25  (UTC) . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License ; additional terms may apply. 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