The OpenStack open source cloud computing project, which is backed a host of technology giants around the world, is marking its third birthday this week at the open-source conference, OSCON.

OpenStack is a major step allowing anyone to build their own cloud service independently of the control of proprietary cloud vendors. However, the project needs to advertise itself to survive and attract much interest in the market in order to compete with the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and the other players in the market.

Randy Bias, the founder and CTO of OpenStack distie Cloudscaling has said that the project now needs to support full set of APIs from Amazon Web Services and other public clouds for remaining relevant in the market. Bias urged the firms associated with the project to embrace the full set of AWS APIs and those created by Rackspace Hosting at the beginning of the OpenStack project.

Bias has urged the OpenStack community to get AWS compatibility back into OpenStack. He also said that the project must go as far as supporting full APIs of Microsoft's Windows Azure and Google's Compute Engine public clouds.

“The community controls the direction of the project, and it's time we advocate a public cloud compatibility strategy that is in all our best interests, not just those of a single, albeit substantial, contributor. Failing to make this change in strategy could ultimately lead to the project's irrelevance and death,” he said.