Apple acquires the inventors of Open Policy Agent, but CNCF safeguards the project’s open source future as Styra’s commercial tools are released to the community.
Apple has acquired the core developers behind the Open Policy Agent (OPA), including Styra CTO Tim Hinrichs, in a move that strengthens its global cloud services authorisation infrastructure. Apple, already a major OPA user, will now integrate the expertise of the inventors directly into its operations.
Despite this talent acquisition, the OPA project itself remains unaffected. The open source code continues to be governed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), with the list of maintainers unchanged and community oversight intact. This ensures that Apple gains developer knowledge but not control over the project’s governance or direction.
In a significant boost for the open source ecosystem, Styra’s commercial OPA offerings are also being released as open source. These include the enterprise distribution EOPA, the management interface OPA Control Plane, multiple SDKs, and the Rego linter Regal, expanding the tools available to the wider community.
OPA has been part of CNCF since 2018, reaching graduated status in 2021 with contributions from 485 developers. It is widely adopted across industries—from Kubernetes and banking to organisations such as Netflix, Goldman Sachs, Zalando, CapitalOne, and the European Patent Office.
The future of Styra as a company remains uncertain, with no details on how it will continue following Apple’s hire of its core team. While OPA’s website, Rego Playground, and development will continue as before, organisations that previously relied on Styra’s consulting expertise may now find themselves without direct access to its founding team.
The acquisition underscores the resilience of open source governance: Apple secures talent, but the CNCF ensures neutrality, stability, and long-term community stewardship.
