The thing that I most love about working on Wireshark is our community. Our users, educators, and developers have a passion for packets and protocols, and their work is important – modern society runs on computer networks and those networks need to be reliable, fast, and secure. I’m grateful that my employers and other sponsors have ensured that the community has had the resources to grow and thrive over the years.

This is why I’m beyond thrilled to announce that the Wireshark community now has a permanent home: the Wireshark Foundation. The foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and will host SharkFest, our developer and user conference, help to facilitate Wireshark’s development, and promote analysis and troubleshooting education.

The project leadership and I have been working on this for a long time, and many other people have generously given their time and expertise in order to make this happen. In particular I’d like to thank the following people for helping to make this a reality: the Wireshark core development team for providing much needed support and advice, and for making all of this possible. Sheri Najafi and Angelo Spampinato for keeping the foundation running, and along with Janice Spampinato, bringing us SharkFest. CACE Technologies for being the first home of SharkFest, Riverbed for taking up that mantle and hosting the project for so many years, and Loris Degioanni and everyone else at Sysdig for providing the resources necessary to get us across the finish line.

2023 is shaping up to be a great year for the project. Along with the foundation, we will celebrate our 25th anniversary in July, and we will be meeting in person again at SharkFest in Asia, the U.S., and in Europe. See you there!

You can learn more (and donate of course) at wiresharkfoundation.org.

If you or your employer would like to become a foundation member, you can learn more at https://wiresharkfoundation.org/pdf/become-a-member.pdf.

You can find Sysdig’s press release at https://sysdig.com/press-releases/wireshark-foundation/.