<p>As I understand that Kubernetes is a set of binaries that can form a new k8s cluster. There is an open-source <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">kubernetes</a> on git hub but there still some confusion:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who is the core team maintain (have write permission) to <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">kubernetes</a> repo? &quot;The Linux Foundation&quot; or CNCF?</li>
<li>I see that there a multi Kubernetes engines (RKE, EKS..). Do they just add some add-ons/plugin/tools or they modify the source code of <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">kubernetes</a> to build another version of k8s components (apiserver, kube-proxy, kubelet)?</li>
<li>If I use RKE binary to setup my cluster and it shows Kubernetes version &quot;v1.17.2&quot; that means the version is release of <a href="https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">kubernetes</a> repo or it just another fork repo of rancher team. The question is the same to GKE, EKS...</li>
</ol>

<blockquote>
<p>Who is the core team maintain (have write permission) to kubernetes
repo? &quot;The Linux Foundation&quot; or CNCF?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is one of the projects hosted by the Linux Foundation. Kubernetes is one of the project graduated from CNCF. Read more over <a href="https://www.cncf.io/projects/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I see that there a multi Kubernetes engines (RKE, EKS..). Do they just
add some add-ons/plugin/tools or they modify the source code of
kubernetes to build another version of k8s components (apiserver,
kube-proxy, kubelet)?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They are really not &quot;multi kubernetes engines&quot;, these are just Kubernetes offering from different vendors. Another such example is GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) by Google. Main advantage you get from GKE/EKS v/s Kubernetes is that GKE/EKS etc. are managed products, so the vendor providing the same will be responsible for cluster management, availibility of Master and Worker nodes etc.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I use RKE binary to setup my cluster and it shows Kubernetes
version &quot;v1.17.2&quot; that means the version is release of kubernetes repo
or it just another fork repo of rancher team. The question is the same
to GKE, EKS..</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the core you still have got Kubernetes but once you are using managed products like GKE or EKS, better not to mix them with &quot;Kubernetes&quot; and start thinking of them as GKE or EKS etc. They all can have their own Release cycles + many different other Cloud Computing products of the same vendor are integrated with it. Read more over <a href="https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/versioning" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p>
