A splinter group has announced the official launch of the OpenTF project, an open-source fork of HashiCorp Terraform. This comes in response to HashiCorp’s recent decision to change the open source license it uses for its developer tools, including Terraform. The change caused a backlash in the open-source community, prompting the creation of the OpenTF project.
New Open Source Fork for Terraform
The group behind OpenTF has completed all the necessary documentation to make the project part of the Linux Foundation, with the ultimate goal of including it in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. By placing OpenTF under the jurisdiction of a foundation, the group aims to ensure that the tool remains truly open-source and neutral to any specific vendor.
The Importance of Terraform
Terraform is a widely used tool for writing infrastructure as code, which allows developers to code connections to the infrastructure in a declarative manner. This approach greatly simplifies the overall development process. In a blog post, Armon Dadgar, co-founder of HashiCorp, explained the rationale behind the licensing change:
“Our approach has enabled us to partner closely with cloud providers and other technology partners. However, some vendors take advantage of open-source projects without providing material contributions back, which goes against the spirit of open source.”
Community Backlash
Following HashiCorp’s announcement, a faction within the community felt betrayed and released a manifesto demanding a return to the previous licensing arrangement or the release of an open-source version of Terraform. Not meeting these demands, HashiCorp inspired the group to take the next step towards becoming an independent open-source project.
Strong Community Support
Since the publication of the manifesto, the group claims to have received support from 400 companies, 10 projects, and 400 individuals. This diverse and passionate community will contribute to the development of the OpenTF project. Kelsey Hightower, a renowned open-source advocate and Kubernetes evangelist, highlighted the significance of the community’s reaction to such changes.
Key Takeaway
A splinter group has officially launched the OpenTF project, an open-source fork of HashiCorp Terraform. This initiative stems from discontent within the community following HashiCorp’s change in licensing. The goal is to establish a truly open-source and vendor-neutral alternative under the jurisdiction of a foundation. Strong community support has already been garnered for this new project.
The group is currently in the process of developing their alternative version of Terraform and plans to publish the fork in the next 1-2 weeks. While a release may not be available immediately, the repository will be open, and subsequent releases, including alpha and stable versions, are expected to follow shortly.
