"Unlike existing open source PaaS products, Flynn focuses on providing a set of modular components that can be replaced and reused."
I wonder if there is anyone here who works on CloudFoundry or OpenShift and could comment on this, or comment on the proposed capabilities of Flynn (https://github.com/flynn/flynn-spec) compared to the capabilities of their systems.
They actually don't use LXC though and implement resource control with Cgroups. That said, Cloud Foundry is extremely difficult to get setup and running in my experience (even with the v2.0 recently released). It sounds like one big differentiating factor is that Flynn would have fewer moving pieces (Cloud Foundry is at least: BOSH, Warden, VCAP?, CF itself, etc.).
+1 on the fact CF installation is tough! They recently releases a suite of scripts to help installing it on AWS. Forget about installing it manually on Open Stack (talking from experience). I can only hope Flynn gets the easy install right, so people will be able to try it out.
CF is actually very plugable as well - there is a well defined internal API, which you could just add components that listens/publishes to - however, I don't think its encouraged, neither have I seen a single example of it.
Yeah, CF is a very powerful toolkit (as you mention with the API), but part of the power seems to come coupled with the complexity. I've seen some scripts/documentation to install on Openstack (this is the best so far http://www.pistoncloud.com/2013/06/deploying-bosh-cloud-foun...), but still, it's a huge, huge pain.
I'm a user of OpenShift, and to be honest, it sounds like they are doing exactly what Flynn wants to do (but without Docker). They have cartridges, both official and community made, but they can also be bypassed and customized, as far as I can tell.
I wonder if there is anyone here who works on CloudFoundry or OpenShift and could comment on this, or comment on the proposed capabilities of Flynn (https://github.com/flynn/flynn-spec) compared to the capabilities of their systems.