OpenTF Fork of HashiCorp Terraform Launched by Splinter Group

HashiCorp’s recent license change for Terraform and its tools sparked controversy in the open-source community. In response, a splinter group launched the OpenTF project, an open-source fork of Terraform. The group shared a blog post:

“We completed all documents required for OpenTF to become part of the Linux Foundation with the end goal of having OpenTF as part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. By making a foundation responsible for the project, we will ensure the tool stays truly open-source and vendor-neutral.”

Terraform is used explicitly for coding infrastructure through a declarative approach, streamlining the process. HashiCorp co-founder Armon Dadgar explained the motive behind the license change in an August 10 blog post;

“Our approach has enabled us to partner closely with the cloud providers to enable tight integration for our joint users and customers, as well as hundreds of other technology partners we work closely with. However, there are other vendors who take advantage of pure OSS models, and the community work on OSS projects, for their own commercial goals, without providing material contributions back. We don’t believe this is in the spirit of open source.”

After HashiCorp announced a license change, a community section felt disappointed and issued a declaration. This group demanded that HashiCorp revert to the prior Mozilla Public License v2.0 (MPL 2.0) arrangement, or they’d release their version of Terraform. As HashiCorp didn’t comply, the group progressed towards establishing an independent open-source project separate from HashiCorp.

Since the manifesto’s release, the group has gained support from 400 companies, ten projects, and 400 individuals for the new project. Kelsey Hightower, a prominent open-source advocate, noted on X (previously Twitter) that this group’s formation showcases the community’s adaptability to changes. The group wrote;

“We’re planning to publish the fork in the next 1-2 weeks. That doesn’t mean there will be a release by then, but the repository will be open. Releases (alpha and stable) should follow shortly.”