The name OpenTofu may sound silly
Someone should make a open source project about how to give good names to open source projects.
EDIT: Informative comments below have convinced me that the license change is worth worrying about, and this fork is worth supporting.
The new license does not really affect the average person. Only companies offering terraform as a hosted service.
Funny to be reading this in an open source community. For one, the fork’s license is open source while Terraform’s is not. The impact is mostly on businesses, but open source has always been for everyone - including business.
Furthermore, Terraform’s new license is subject to interpretation and dynamic. It’s so hazy and unclear that they created an FAQ website which is essentially a binding addendum to the license that can be updated anytime as Hashicorp pleases. Is your business competing with Hashicorp? Who knows, only Hashicorp can decide that.
Edit: Clarified phrasing
I like open source because of how it affects ordinary individuals. I am not very concerned for businesses. In fact I’d prefer that businesses profitting from free software must profit share with the creators. It would ensure the longevity of the project.
What you’re describing is business source, not open source. Hashicorp chose to use open source and thus allow other companies to compete. Nobody forced them to, they could’ve just kept Terraform as closed or business source from the beginning. There’s nothing wrong with doing so, only if you pull a bait and switch like Hashicorp did does it become a problem.
Good.
Why tho? I read the justification and the new license. Seems pretty okay to me. This is just going to fragment the community. So worse for everyone
There are a number of companies that would be affected by the license change, and they are the largest driving force behind the fork. Hashicorp’s managed option just really sucks. There might be fragmentation, but I expect most people to switch to the project with more engineers, Linux foundation backing, and an actually open source license.
Love to see this and hate to see it at the same time.
I wonder how long interoperability will last or if they will immediately start forging a new path.
