On November 12, 2022, at the North American Open Source Summit, Sylva Project officially launched—introduced by Arpit Joshipura and Stéphane Demartis—and became the first project hosted at LF Europe. That moment capped nearly two years of preparation with our early collaborators: aligning on strategy and governance, choosing the right open source foundation home, and crafting a name and visual identity that captured our ambition.
Three years on, Sylva has grown from a bold idea into a production-grade telco cloud stack that operators rely on every day.
How We Got Here
Long before launch day, our founding contributors did the unglamorous but essential work: defining an open governance model, setting contribution pathways, and agreeing on principles that would let a diverse community build something bigger than any single company could deliver. Their early conviction—and willingness to dream big—set a visionary course we’re still following.
Where We Are Today
- Production-grade stack in live production for 18 months
- 10 countries running the Sylva stack as telco cloud in live networks
- 35 contributing companies and 16 financial sponsors
- A thriving community with 700+ Slack followers and 1,500+ LinkedIn subscribers
- 20 network functions validated on Sylva
- Supply chain security implemented, highlighted in a testimonial at an OpenSSF event
- The first Green Dashboard visualizing CO₂ emissions per CNF
- Two new Working Groups (added in 2025) on “Cluster Networking” and “Workloads Lifecycle Management with GitOps”
These milestones aren’t just numbers—they’re proof that open collaboration can deliver carrier-grade outcomes, move sustainability from aspiration to instrumentation, and bring security into the heart of day-two operations.
What’s Ahead
Our roadmap reflects the breadth and urgency of what operators need next:
- Edge federation, AI, and IT–network convergence use cases, along with Open RAN requirements
- Expanding operator footprint in production, building on today’s momentum
- Digital sovereignty & regulatory alignment, including NIS2 and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA)
- Continuous innovation toward 6G, with feature releases that keep pace with real-world demand
- Sustaining the energy of a dynamic community—because people power progress
A Community Built on Gratitude
Anniversaries are for thank-yous. To the initial investigators who kicked off the Sylva adventure and set its north star: your early leadership made all of this possible. To every contributor, sponsor, operator, and user who files an issue, reviews a PR, validates a CNF, or shares a field story—thank you for turning vision into reality.
Join Us
Whether you’re an operator modernizing your telco cloud, a vendor validating CNFs, or a developer passionate about open infrastructure, there’s a place for you in Sylva. Come help shape the next three years—at the edge, in the RAN, across multi-cloud footprints, and into an AI-native future.
Here’s to what we’ve built, and to what we’ll build together next. Happy third birthday, Sylva!
