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General | Spacelift Blog

General

Pawel Hytry

As the CEO of Spacelift, I am thrilled to share the exciting news about OpenTofu (formerly OpenTF) becoming a part of the Linux Foundation. Earlier today, Jim Zemlin and Sebastian Stadil <a href="https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/announcing-opentofu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made this announcement</a> on the stage of the Open Source Summit in Bilbao. They also revealed that OpenTofu would be going through the process of joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
<h2>So, what exactly is OpenTofu?</h2>
OpenTofu is a fork of the legacy MPL-licensed Terraform. Unlike new releases of Terraform, OpenTofu is, and will always be, truly open source, community-driven, and impartial. The OpenTofu repository is publicly available, allowing you to see everything OpenTofu contributors have been working on.
The <a href="https://opentofu.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OpenTofu initiative</a> was launched with significant initial support, boasting over 18 full-time equivalents (FTEs) committed to the project from four companies. The manifesto has been endorsed by over 140 companies, involving 11 projects with the participation of over 700 individuals. Moreover, the manifesto has received more than 35,000 GitHub stars, and the fork itself has garnered over 6,000 stars in just one week.
<h2>Now, why should you care?</h2>
If you&#8217;re like many Terraform users, you&#8217;ve likely spent the last few weeks pondering the implications of the <a href="https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/hashicorp-adopts-business-source-license" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">BSL announcement</a> for you and your company. Can you continue using Terraform? Can you integrate it into your CI/CD pipeline? Should you consider alternatives like CloudFormation, Pulumi, or Crossplane? Do you need to develop custom tooling for Terraform? Will you be required to pay for Terraform? Is Terraform Cloud or Enterprise your only option now? Is HashiCorp going to put the squeeze on you? Unfortunately, the <a href="https://www.hashicorp.com/blog/hashicorp-updates-licensing-faq-based-on-community-questions" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">ever-changing FAQ </a>provided no clarity.
With OpenTofu, you have a clear path to maintaining the status quo. You won&#8217;t need to fret about BSL and its complexities. OpenTofu is the evolution of legacy Terraform.
<h2>What does joining the Linux Foundation mean for OpenTofu?</h2>
The decision to join the Linux Foundation is significant because it provides OpenTofu with a stable and well-respected organizational home. This move ensures that the project remains independent and avoids the risk of being controlled or influenced by a single company, which is a concern that many in the open-source community share.
By joining the Linux Foundation, you can rest assured that the tool will remain truly open source and neutral, free from the influence of any single company. It will continue to be:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Truly open source &#8211; under a well-known and widely-accepted license that companies can trust, one that won&#8217;t suddenly change in the future or be at the mercy of a single vendor&#8217;s business plans.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Community-driven &#8211; with the community governing the project, regularly reviewing and accepting pull requests based on their merit.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Impartial &#8211; ensuring that valuable features and fixes are accepted based on their value to the community, regardless of their impact on any particular vendor.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Layered and modular &#8211; featuring a programmer-friendly project structure that encourages building on top of it, fostering a new vibrant ecosystem of tools and integrations.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Backwards-compatible &#8211; ensuring that existing code can continue to deliver value for years to come.</li>
</ul>
As a part of the Linux Foundation, the project will be safeguarded against the risk of any single organization altering its licensing terms. It will always remain open.
<h2>Now, why is this important for you and your organization?</h2>
Legacy Terraform served as the foundation for countless infrastructure teams. If you used Terraform, you likely invested significant effort in making it work seamlessly for your company. With the license change, HashiCorp exercised their full control over Terraform effectively limiting the permitted usage. And it might not be over. They could alter the license terms further, mandate payment for Terraform use, and potentially back you into a corner. Using the BSL version of Terraform is likely to put your company at risk. While things might turn out fine, you&#8217;re left at the mercy of a single vendor with complete control over your infrastructure.
OpenTofu addresses real concerns and provides a clear and attractive alternative in the world of infrastructure as code. Its commitment to open-source principles, community-driven development, and neutrality under the Linux Foundation&#8217;s umbrella should all contribute to its rapid rise.
Finally, OpenTofu provides you with a dependable path to maintain the status quo. You can breathe easy, knowing that you won&#8217;t need to navigate the complexities of BSL. OpenTofu is the natural progression of legacy Terraform, backed by a strong and independent foundation.

The Future of Terraform - OpenTF Manifesto!

Spacelift's latest statement on HashiCorp's BSL adoption

Exploring the Tech Stack: Spacelift's Supported Tools and Frameworks

OpenTofu (formerly OpenTF) is now a part of the Linux Foundation. See why is this important and what joining the Linux Foundation means for OpenTofu.

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OpenTofu joins the Linux Foundation

OpenTofu Joins the Linux Foundation

Flavius Dinu

BREAKING NEWS: It’s here! The OpenTF fork is public! Take a look at the <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">repository</a>, star it, and see all open <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/issues" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">issues</a>.
The community’s response to OpenTF was extraordinary. In less than a month, the manifesto repository has received over 33k stars, with almost 140 companies and 700 individuals pledging their support, and a couple of companies — including Spacelift — even pledged to cover the costs of full-time engineers (five for Spacelift) to be employed by the foundation to maintain OpenTF for a long period, ensuring this project will be on the top level of infrastructure as code (IaC) offerings.

opentf-stars

opentf stars

This kind of growth is exceptional, so everyone’s support is much appreciated, and further support is highly encouraged by the OpenTF community.
<h2>Contributing to OpenTF</h2>
The easiest way to contribute to OpenTF is by <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/issues/new/choose" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">opening an issue</a>! Feature requests, bug reports, broken compatibility reports, old issue reposts, and RFCs are welcome.
If you’d like to propose a major change, you will need to prepare an RFC. All of these changes, including the ones prepared by the core team, will go through the public RFC process to give everyone the possibility to discuss that particular issue. You can easily check out all the RFCs by going to the issues view and using the rfc label filter. To open an RFC and use the template for it, go to issues and select the Submit RFC option.
Contributing a code change can be done in a few easy steps:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Fork the repository.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Make your changes.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Create a pull request (you will need to ensure that your commits are signed).</li>
</ol>
Signing your commits ensures you are accepting the <a href="https://developercertificate.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Developer Certificate of Origin </a>(DCO), which is required for making code contributions to OpenTF.
Do you want to learn more about contributing to OpenTF? Check out the <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">contribution guide</a>!
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
OpenTF’s in-progress items are:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Sticking with OpenTF as the name of the project or choosing a different one</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Creating an initial OpenTF Registry, that will be later changed to an official one after it goes through an RFC process.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Creating the first stable release of OpenTF that will be a drop-in replacement for Terraform – this will be done once community feedback is received and enough testing is done.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to continue supporting OpenTF</h2>
Apart from contributing directly to the repository, here are some other things you can do to show your support:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://join.slack.com/t/slack-9uv6202/shared_invite/zt-22ifsm1t2-AF6cL0cOdzivP8E~4deDJA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Join OpenTF’s Slack community</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/opentf/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Join OpenTF’s Reddit community</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><a href="https://twitter.com/opentforg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Follow OpenTF for more information on X</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Key points</h2>
The OpenTF repository is now public, and you have many options for contributing. It will be developed in public, and all the major changes will go through an RFC process to ensure the voice of the community members is heard.

Spacelift is an alternative to using homegrown solutions on top of a generic CI. It helps overcome common state management issues and adds several must-have capabilities for infrastructure management.

OpenTF Is Announcing Fork of Terraform!

The OpenTF repository is now public! See how you can contribute, what's next, and how to continue supporting OpenTF.

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OpenTF – Publishing the Fork

On August 10, 2023, HashiCorp announced that after ~9 years of Terraform being open source, they were suddenly switching it to a non-open source BSL license. 
In response to HashiCorp’s move, Spacelift, along with many other companies joined forces to create an initiative called <a href="https://opentf.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">OpenTF</a> with a <a href="https://opentf.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">manifesto</a> to ensure Terraform always remains open source. The community response to the OpenTF initiative has been enormous! The manifesto has already been signed by over 120 companies, 10 projects, and 500 individuals ready to pledge their time and resources to keep Terraform open source. It has amassed over 25,000 stars on <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">the GitHub repository</a>, and the numbers are growing daily! 
 
But the manifesto was not just a pledge to support Terraform as an open-source tool; it also set out two key aims. The first was to appeal to Hashicorp to return Terraform to the community and abandon the planned license change. Secondly, if the license was not reverted, the manifesto outlined a plan to fork the Terraform project into an OpenTF fork.
<h2>OpenTF has now forked Terraform!</h2>
Since no reversal has been done, and no intent to do one has been communicated, OpenTF is thrilled to announce we have created a fork of the legacy MPL-licensed Terraform under the name OpenTF. Over the last week, Spacelift engineers have been working with teams at other companies, including competitors, to make this project a reality. We want to keep OpenTF truly open-source and governed by the community for the community. 
OpenTF stands for the following ideals:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">True Open Source: Maintained under a well-known and trustworthy license that guarantees stability.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Community-Driven: Governance of the project is handed to the community, with a regular review of pull requests based on their merits. Proposed changes will follow a transparent public RFC process.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Impartiality: Features and fixes are judged on their community value — not on their value to a specific vendor.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Modularity and Layering: The project will be kept layered and modular to enable a dynamic ecosystem of tools and integrations.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Backward Compatibility: Keeping it backward-compatible will ensure existing code can create value in the future. </li>
</ul>
<h2>OpenTF will become a part of the Linux Foundation</h2>
OpenTF completed all documents required for it to be accepted into the Linux Foundation, with the ultimate goal of including OpenTF in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). We believe that making a foundation responsible for the project ensures it remains open-source and vendor-neutral.
Many tools we use in our Terraform workflows exist purely because Terraform has been open-source from the outset. That is why Spacelift and the other OpenTF signatories believe the only viable future for Terraform is OpenTF.
<h2>OpenTF Roadmap</h2>
OpenTF has been working on this fork for several days already, with over 10 engineers across multiple companies. Here’s where it’s at now:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The repository-wide rename to OpenTF is almost complete.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Initial steering committee members have been selected.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Community documents have undergone cleanup and initial adjustment.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">CI/CD pipelines and multiple testing harnesses of end-to-end and snapshot tests are now working and green (this ensures backward compatibility).</li>
</ul>
OpenTF plans to publish the repository soon after it has been officially accepted into a foundation and has implemented foundational community guardrails and processes.
In the spirit of being as open as possible, OpenTF has created a <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/roadmap/milestones">public repository tracking its progress towards significant milestones</a>. You can subscribe to the issues there to be notified as soon as the fork is public. If you have any questions, please create additional issues on that repository &#8211; the team behind OpenTF will try to respond as quickly as possible.
&nbsp;
<h2>FAQ:</h2>
When will the OpenTF fork be accessible?
The plan is to publish the fork within 1-2 weeks. While this doesn&#8217;t mean an immediate release, the repository itself will be accessible, with alpha and stable releases following shortly thereafter.
Can OpenTF seamlessly replace legacy Terraform?
Yes, OpenTF is designed to be a drop-in replacement for legacy Terraform.
Will OpenTF be compatible with Terraform providers and modules?
Yes, OpenTF will be fully compatible with providers and modules that Terraform supports.
What will be the first release of OpenTF?
The first release, marked 1.6.0-alpha, will be a forked version of the most recent commit still licensed under the MPL.
Who is responsible for maintaining OpenTF? Is there sufficient support?
The OpenTF initiative has pledges from 4 companies, equivalent to 14 full-time engineers. This commitment is expected to double in the coming weeks.
How can I contribute to OpenTF?
Companies interested in pledging resources can email us or submit PRs on the manifesto repository. Currently, the best way for anyone to contribute is to spread awareness. Once the repository is public and the contribution process is formalized, coding contributions will also be welcomed.
Does OpenTF have a public roadmap? Can I influence it?
You can find the current public roadmap <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/roadmap/milestones" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on this GitHub repository</a>. We will introduce the RFC process for you to be able to contribute to the roadmap as soon as possible.
Will OpenTF be compatible with future Terraform releases?
OpenTF is committed to being 100% interoperable with future Terraform releases unless the community desires change.
Can OpenTF change its licensing model in the future?
Once OpenTF becomes part of the foundation, it’s governed by the foundation and the project community. Its licensing model cannot change.

What HashiCorp’s license change means for Spacelift customers

OpenTF announced Terraform fork! Learn about the fork, the importance of a foundation and what happens next.

259-announcement-opentf

259.announcement opentf

OpenTF is Announcing Fork of Terraform!

The Future of Terraform, Announcing OpenTF

Craig Dunn

<h2>What happened?</h2>
On August 10th, HashiCorp dropped a bombshell on the open source world announcing that going forward they will be changing the license on their core products, including Terraform, to a Business Source License (BSL v1.1 to be specific). Unlike the Mozilla Public License (MPL v2) that their products were previously licensed under, BSL is not an open source license. While it still allows similar freedoms for individuals to use, share, and modify, it places restrictions on various forms of commercial use.
Commercial development on open source foundations is nothing new and historically has benefited the industry by creating a base for competitive innovation that gives birth to better products and more choice for end users. One such example is the open source version control system Git, licensed under an open source GPL license. Git remains the most widely adopted version control system in the world. There are many successful commercial products built upon Git including GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket and more. End users have a choice between several powerful innovative tools and the Git ecosystem is thriving as a result.
Many open source projects are founded and managed by commercial organizations. This has for a long time been an accepted part of the open source ecosystem. The community benefits with open source projects backed by dedicated resources and structure, and the founding companies benefit by virtue of their position as custodians of the project and can leverage that visibility to aid their own commercial offerings.
To a large extent the balance between commercial interest and open source integrity has been maintained as the nature of open source licenses prevents projects from unilaterally changing their licensing terms. Traditionally, contributors retain the rights to their code which is protected under the same license terms.
In recent years however, we have seen a number of commercial organizations launch projects under open source licenses but require all third parties to sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) before any contributions will be merged into their source code. The purpose of this CLA is normally to require the contributor to hand over the rights to the code they contribute to the company. CLAs have been seen by many as a risk and an affront to the core principles of open source software since they consolidate the rights of all code to one entity, often with a commercial interest in the project. This is how HashiCorp was able to make this surprise move to Terraform.
The new BSL license that Terraform will adopt going forward contains restrictions on using the software on a hosted or embedded basis which is competitive with HashiCorp’s products.  Rather than encourage open innovation and competition in the Terraform ecosystem, HashiCorp have decided to attempt to block any other companies from competing with their own commercial offerings by snatching Terraform back from its open source foundations, violating the trust of the whole community that have adopted, contributed to, and advocated for Terraform over the past nine years helping make it the most prolific IaC tool we have.
<h2>Community Response: Announcing OpenTF Manifesto</h2>
The actions that HashiCorp has taken this week have left many in the community with very little clarity. The vague nature of the wording in the new license raises more questions than it answers. In fact, the only true clarity that we have is that the custodians of Terraform can and will pull the rug out from under its users whenever they feel that the way in which people use Terraform affects their commercial interests. There are no guarantees that HashiCorp won’t further modify its license to add even more restrictions in the future. Many feel that this introduces too much unpredictability to an ecosystem that thousands of organizations rely on to underpin their core infrastructure.
One thing that we all agree on is that Terraform is a fantastic tool that many of us rely on to deploy and maintain vital infrastructure. It is imperative that Terraform remains an open and collaborative project that serves the interests of the entire community, not just one commercial entity.
Since the announcement of the license change last week there has been a tumultuous amount of activity, speculation and discussion about the future of Terraform and what can be done to not lose such a precious and important asset. As a result, in the true spirit of our community, many companies and individuals have come together in unison to act as one under the umbrella of OpenTF.
<a href="https://opentf.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OpenTF</a> is a collaborative initiative supported by many of the most recognized companies and projects in the Terraform ecosystem, including Spacelift, pledging time, funding and resources to ensure the success and stability of the initiative.
On August 15th, just five days after the initial announcement from HashiCorp, OpenTF <a href="https://opentf.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released its manifesto</a>. The manifesto lays out OpenTFs intent and goals and sets out a roadmap to ensure the continued survival of Terraform as an open source tool. As a first step, OpenTF is appealing to HashiCorp to reverse their decision and revert Terraform back to a true open source license and put safeguards in place to ensure it stays that way forever.
If unsuccessful in appealing to HashiCorp, OpenTF is paving the way to fork the Terraform project under its original MPL license. Forking a project is never something to be taken lightly.  There are always risks of fragmentation and division within the user base that ultimately hinder the adoption of both sides. Trust has been lost and end users need confidence in the project and its management. That’s why OpenTF is seeking to fork the project into a foundation with true independent and impartial governance that only has one objective; continue to make Terraform the number one IaC tool and deliver what users want.
We at Spacelift believe that OpenTF has the right objectives. Furthermore, we believe that it has the backing and support to make this a huge success for all of us that use and love Terraform and we are proud to be a part of it.
<h2>How can you help?</h2>
You can help OpenTF either as a company, project, or individual by opening up a pull request on the <a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OpenTF </a><a href="https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto" target="_blank" rel="noopener">manifesto GitHub repository</a>.  Here you can pledge resources, time, and services to the initiative.  If you would just like to show your support for OpenTF, then please star the repository on GitHub, share the website on social media, and help us all spread the word.

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Announcing OpenTF Manifesto! OpenTF is a community response to the recent HashiCorp BSL license change. See how you can help.

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