From Terraform to OpenTF – A Tale of Community Governance
HashiCorp’s unexpected decision to adopt a Business Source License (BSL) for core products, including Terraform, ignited a wave of reactions from the Terraform community. Driven by the belief that Terraform should remain open-source, over 100 companies, 10 projects, and 400 individuals came together to endorse the OpenTF manifesto.
This manifesto isn’t just a symbolic gesture. Its primary aim was to persuade HashiCorp to return Terraform to the community and rethink the licensing change. With no acknowledgment of this collective appeal, the community is now advancing to its next objective: forking the MPL-licensed Terraform repository.
Introducing the OpenTF Fork
The endorsers of the OpenTF manifesto have initiated the OpenTF fork from the previously MPL-licensed Terraform. In recent times, engineers from various companies, even those traditionally seen as competitors, have collaborated to realize this vision. The collective goal is clear: to ensure OpenTF remains genuinely open-source, steered and governed by the community.
As someone closely watching the developments, I’ve observed the commitment of these endorsers. They’re striving for impartiality in the project, ensuring that features and fixes are assessed based on their value to the community, not just a specific vendor. There’s also a strong emphasis on maintaining a modular approach, fostering a dynamic ecosystem of tools and integrations. And importantly, backward compatibility is a top priority, safeguarding the value of existing code.
Laying the Foundation for OpenTF
With OpenTF’s emergence as a Terraform fork, the next phase is to set up a foundation to guide the project, ensuring it remains open-source and vendor-neutral. All necessary documentation has been prepared for a potential spot in the Linux Foundation, with aspirations to be part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
Having used open-source Terraform tools in various IT projects, I can attest to their value. It’s evident to me, and many others, that OpenTF represents a bright future for Terraform.
The Road Ahead for OpenTF
OpenTF has already marked significant milestones in a relatively short period:
- The renaming of the repository to OpenTF is almost finalized.
- The initial steering committee members have been appointed.
- Community documents have undergone revisions and updates.
- CI/CD pipelines, along with robust testing frameworks, are operational and successful, ensuring backward compatibility.
Once OpenTF establishes its place within a foundation and lays down core community guidelines, the repository will be made public.
For fellow tech enthusiasts and readers interested in tracking OpenTF’s journey, I recommend visiting their public repository. To stay in the loop about the fork’s public release, consider subscribing to the repository’s issues.
