"Linux Foundation joins IBM to accelerate the mission of multi-cloud automation and bring the products to a broader audience of users and customers." ;)
I wouldn't bet on that, some Linux Foundation hosted projects like Zephyr, not only don't have anything to do with Linux, they are under licenses that are quite business friendly as well.
So yeah, one can always fork the last available version, if it then survives to the extent that actually matters beyond hobby coding is seldom the case.
How many Open Solaris forks are actually relevant outside the company that owns those forks?
Also IBM, Microsoft, Oracle,.... and others that HN loves to hate are already members.
He added that it offered to carry on working with the four main companies affected by the switch, saying “You just have to bear some of the r&d costs. And they were like, ‘No, no, we're gonna do something else’. Which is fine.”
I want to clarify that nobody ever approached us (env0) from Hashicorp.
I think it is reasonable for a company to start OSS and then change its license. But it indeed feels like a rugpull for all the contributors.
That is why OpenTF is on its way to CNCF. To ensure it stays OSS forever.
There is a difference between "true OSS" like K8s, OPA, etc and "temporary OSS" (backed by a company) like what Terraform used to be, Pulumi, GitLab ,etc. Those can be changed in the future.
When developers chose OSS, they should consider if it is a CNCF OSS or a vendor backed OSS. What Hashi did is an important example.
(disclaimer - env0 founder here, co-lead the OpenTF initiative)
> Pulumi is true open source, uses the Apache 2.0 license, and does not and never will depend on BSL-licensed software in any way, HashiCorp owned or otherwise.
Disclaimer: the following is my own opinion as an engineer at Pulumi.
Pulumi is true open source, with a relationship similar to git and the many SaaS services that layer on top of git to provide meaningful value.
To contrast with our competitor, Pulumi relies on open source languages and protocols. We could not, even if we wanted to, change the Python license. Nor could we change our protocols without breaking our users and our growing ecosystem.
That's the value of building on open protocols and standard languages.
env0 founder here, and core member in the OpenTF initiative. Thank you for your note. I wanted to mention that indeed env0 enjoyed Terraform being free, but also contributed back to the Terraform ecosystem, with github.com/env0/terratag OSS and TheIaCPodcast.com for education. Also important to mention another and probably a more important key member in the OpenTF initiative - Gruntwork, creators of Terragrunt and Terratest. I believe we all contributed nicely to the community, especially compared to our size / being small compared to Hashi. Just my 2 cents, in order to add a bit more context to "companies supporting OpenTF have closed-source products".
env0 founder here. Thank you for your note. Important to mention Gruntwork, creators of Terragrunt and Terratest together with us here. Also, the CNCF/LF will assign some external members to the TSC (technical steerring committee). I honestly believe such a balance (external, Gruntwork, and direct competing vendors), all under a well experienced foundation is the ideal situation.
env0 founder here. What were the main reasons that they used TFC? was it the ability for Hashi to fix things in Terraform CLI/providers? was it their size / "nobody gets fired for buying IBM"? something better in the product? something else?
would love your insights here
env0 founder here. env0 raised $42M (from investors such as Microsoft) and growing fast. We are honored to support OpenTF and already assigned 5 engineers (you will see the usernames in the opentf GitHub repo once that become public).
env0 founder here, direct competition of Terraform Cloud, and core member in the OpenTF initiative. Thank you for your note. I wanted to mention that indeed env0 enjoyed Terraform being free, but also contributed back to the Terraform ecosystem, with github.com/env0/terratag OSS and TheIaCPodcast.com for education.
Also important to mention another and probably a more important key member in the OpenTF initiative - Gruntwork, creators of Terragrunt and Terratest. I believe we all contributed nicely to the community. Just my 2 cents, in order to add a bit more context to "companies who make money from Terraform being free".
Understood - but that was completely for your own gain. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't like the mischaracterisation of HashiCorp as the baddies and this new entity as the goodies. Hashicorp just were too open and giving, and didn't have a way to profit from all the money they invested, the way you and others have profited from their investment.
I could not agree more. Hashicorp are not the baddies. They did what they chose is right for them. They have any right to do so. Also, what Hashi did for OSS in the last decade is amazing, made OSS better and built many communities. Now it is time for something/somebody else to keep Terraform OSS. env0 is proud to take a significant part in this initiative (together with our friends in other companies and the support we got from the community so far), forking Terraform into opentf and donating opentf to CNCF/LF.
Ohad co-founder of env0 here, early supporter in the OpenTF initiative.
TFE and TFC have a future. Competition is good for everybody. It forces innovation.
However, only OpenTF will make sure to properly differentiate between the OSS layer and the commercial layer.
The competition is between real platform engineering tools like yours, spacelift, humanitec, morpheus, etc. Real innovation, not just running TF plan/apply.
