At Arm, Andrew Wafaa, fellow and senior director of software communities, advocates for open source as the go-to solution for tackling challenges and choosing tools. “If a software engineering team wants to release proprietary software, that is the exception,” Wafaa explained in this episode of The New Stack Makers podcast. “They have to justify why it isn’t an open-source solution.” This episode was recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe in London, where Wafaa, who leads Arm’s open source office, highlighted their extensive decade-long commitment to becoming a prominent open source contributor. He emphasizes that Arm is actively engaged in various projects including the Linux kernel, GCC compiler, LLVM compiler and more. This focus on open source extends beyond individual projects; it fuels Arm’s development tools, platform software, and system software which rely heavily on the stability and flexibility of open-source foundations like the Linux kernel and compilers.