Ensure Terraform remains truly open-source. Always.
OpenTF is a fork of Terraform that is open source, community driven, and will be managed by an independent Foundation.
Our Goals
Truly open-source
under a well-known and widely-accepted license that companies can trust, that won’t suddenly change in the future, and isn’t subhect to the whims of a singe vendor.
Community-driven
so that the community governs the project for the community, where pull requests are regularly reviewed and accepted on their merit.
Impartial
so that valuable features and fixes are accepted based on their value to the community, regardless of their impact on any particular vendor.
Layered and modular
with a programmer-friendly project structure to encourage building on top, enabling a new vibrant ecosystem of tools and integrations.
Backwards-compatibile
so that the existing code can drive value for years to come.
Supporters
- Companies139•
- Projects10•
- Foundations1•
- Individuals681
Cover the cost of 5 FTEs for at least 5 years
Development; open-source community efforts
Cover the cost of 5 FTEs for at least 5 years
Cover the cost of 5 FTEs for at least 5 years
Cover the cost of 3 FTEs for at least 5 years
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenTF going to be a foundation?
We strongly prefer joining an existing reputable foundation over creating a new one. Stay tuned for additional details in the coming week.
Can anyone pledge?
Under a well-known and widely-accepted license that companies can trus, that won’t suddenly change in the future, and isn’t subhect to the whims of a singe vendor. Under a well-known and widely-accepted license that companies can trus, that won’t suddenly change in the future, and isn’t subhect to the whims of a singe vendor.
Doesn't forking hurt the whole community? Why take such a brash action?
Terraform was under the MPL license for ~9 years. This created an understanding—an implicit contract—that Terraform is open-source and you can use it for just about anything you want. Based on that understanding, tens of thousands of developers adopted the tool and contributed back to it. HashiCorp even had all contributors sign a CLA which explicitly said (link to the CLA in the Internet Archive as HashiCorp has of course removed this wording):
HashiCorp is committed to having a true Free and Open Source Software (“FOSS”) license for our non-commercial software. A CLA enables HashiCorp to safely commercialize our products while keeping a standard FOSS license with all the rights that the license grants to users: the ability to use the project in their own projects or businesses, to republish modified source, or to fork the project completely.
The move to BUSL—which is not a free and open source license—broke the implicit contract. That was the brash action!
Terraform would've never gotten the adoption it did, or all the contributions from the community had it not been open-source. Most of us would've never agreed to the CLA to contribute to the project if it was BUSL licensed. Taking all those contributions and all that community trust, and then changing to the BUSL license is a bait and switch.
The OpenTF manifesto is about undoing those changes! It's about going back to the way Terraform was for the first ~9 years: as a truly open-source tool that we can all trust, contribute to, and use as we wish.
How to support OpenTF in pledging?
Pledging to the OpenTF manifesto can be done by:
1. Going to the manifesto repository.
2. Forking the repository.
3. Adding your pledge in the index.html file.
4. Pushing the changes to your forked repo, and create a PR.
5. Starring the repository.
6. Joining our Slack community & Follow us on Twitter.
How to use
and contribute to
OpenTF?
How to use and Contribute to OpenTF? The fork will be available shortly. Right now it is just pending foundation details.
Read more about the Fork here. The contribution guide will be defined soon, but in the meantime, you can check out our public roadmap.
Latest News
OpenTF Announces Fork of Terraform
Two weeks ago, HashiCorp announced they are changing the license to all their core products, including Terraform, to the Business Source License (BSL). In an attempt to keep Terraform open source, we published the OpenTF manifesto, and the community response was huge! Over 100 companies, 10 projects, and 400 individuals pledged their time and resources to keep Terraform open-source. The GitHub repository for the manifesto already has over 4k stars, and the number is growing quickly!