Sometimes, posts like this appear on hacker news that are completely impenetrable. I read the page for RunC and the only thing I could find out about it from that page is that it is a "Container", and these are its specs. A "Container" is something that is used by "Docker". "Docker" is a program that "allows you to compose your application from microservices". A "microservice" is "a software architecture style, in which complex applications are composed of small, independent processes" (we're down to wikipedia at this point). So a "microservice" is an abstraction of unix design, and finally we're on solid ground. If you were interested you might be able to work backwards through this list of projects, researching what each one does, and then you could find out what RunC actually is.