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The OpenTF Manifesto

opentf.org

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Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#71

Post by aftbit »

cies wrote: post #37
aftbit wrote: post #17

>Imagine if the creators of Linux [] suddenly switched to a non-open-source license that only permitted non-competitive usage. Linux cannot even successfully switch from GPL2 to GPL3 because of the sheer number of contributors and the fact that not all of them have transferred their copyright ownership to any given organization. This patchwork of different copyright owners has historically been seen as a potential we…

I thought Linus and other believed GPLv2 was fine and the improvements of GPLv3 did not outweigh the potential problems introduced by it. It never came to a point where all authors were asked to agree, or sign away their ownership.

My understanding was that some people in the community believed that GPLv3 was better, and one of Linus's criticisms was that it was essentially impossible to switch even if it were better. I also believe Linus was opposed to the switch, which would make it unlikely anyway, but even if he had approved, I still think it would be practically impossible.

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#72

Post by dijit »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #54

We need a new word for this. We say OpenTF is (or will be) a fork, and forks are bad, nuclear option, etc, but really, Hashicorp are the ones who made a breaking change, and the "fork" merely maintains that which already was, but for reasons, are not allowed to continue using their own name. We need for the shortest sound-bite 3-word sentence to the non-technical to somehow use terminology that says that the entity t…

The issue with that is the ownership of the name.

Name is identity, and thus the canonical representation of "Terraform" is now BSL.

However, if you don't have an identifier such as the trademarked name and you look at the project itself then I think you're right.

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#73

Post by MrStonedOne »

aftbit wrote: post #17

>Imagine if the creators of Linux [] suddenly switched to a non-open-source license that only permitted non-competitive usage. Linux cannot even successfully switch from GPL2 to GPL3 because of the sheer number of contributors and the fact that not all of them have transferred their copyright ownership to any given organization. This patchwork of different copyright owners has historically been seen as a potential we…

[dead]

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#74

Post by throwaway1101z »

tedivm wrote: post #46
theowawayhs wrote: post #43

Once a prolific commentator, Mitchell Hashimoto has gone quiet here for over 50 days now. His GitHub activity seem to indicate he is now focused on the Zig programming language.

He doesn't work at Hashicorp anymore, and even quit the board. Since the company is public he could have just completely cashed out at this point (and I wouldn't blame him for it).

Only Hashicorp employees are allowed to comment here? How about the person that actually built it? Maybe he has interesting things to say. Also, he's been silent on HN as a whole, not just Hashicorp-related threads.

Maybe he signed a gag order and cashed out. We may never know.

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#75

Post by i_am_jl »

brikis98 wrote: post #26
dbingham wrote: post #23

I appreciate the letter and trying to work with Hashicorp -- I used to have a ton of respect for Hashicorp. But honestly... at this point... ...just fork it into a foundation. Don't wait for Hashicorp's response. I get wanting to have the appearance of working with Hashicorp, but we've been shown again, and again, and again, and a-fucking-gain that private corporations cannot be trusted to maintain public goods. Only…

The truth is that a fork hurts everyone. Imagine a future CTO trying to pick the IaC tools for their company. They see Terraform as an option, but then learn there are multiple forks, licensing questions, and a big battle happening in the community. What do they do? They are now way more likely to pick a different tool that is genuinely open source. The same is true of every dev considering where to build their caree…

  Imagine a future CTO trying to pick the IaC tools for their company. They see Terraform as an option, but then learn there are multiple forks, licensing questions, and a big battle happening in the community. What do they do?
I truly believe that a CTO who sees Terraform as an option and who isn't scared off by the BSL, but then has all of these other concerns, exists only in fantasy.

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#76

Post by cyberax »

Terraform core is kinda crappy. The language is awful, and the module infrastructure sucks.

I would support (with my own money) a fork that would re-use the Terraform providers, and reimplement the language as something not so insane.

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#77

Post by fishpen0 »

tedivm wrote: post #42
marcinzm wrote: post #34

As I see it Hashicorp has failed to create a viable business model in an environment where there isn't unlimited perpetual VC money. Now they're at the stage of giving up and simply trying to shake down those who have managed to make better business models. It's usually not a good idea to be near a company flailing like this since who knows what their next rent seeking approach will be. A company with nothing to lose…

The worst part is they did create a viable business model. They were profitable when they had their IPO. They then pretended that the IPO was just another Series X investment, blew all the money, and went negative on their cashflow. Hashicorps problem isn't that their business model doesn't work, it's that they are really bad at their jobs. They ignore customer feedback, laid off support people, and then jacked their…

I've worked for three companies now that went to hashicorp to buy TFE and left with a quote equal to a quarter or more of revenue and the sales rep acting like they are the second coming and obviously we are stupid for not thinking they bring that much value to our org. No org invests 1/4 of their revenue on a single tool. So we used atlantis or spacelift or hand rolled GHA scripts and saved a fortune.

We are trying to pay them and they are being so unreasonable with pricing that we can't give them our money

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#78

Post by fishnchips »

punnerud wrote: post #21

Isn’t all agreements to limit competition illegal in EU/Europe? Even collaboration between competitors agains a 3. part is illegal. The rest of the agreement is still valid, just the completion part is nullified

Spacelift co-founder here. Not going to comment on the legal aspect, but I'm actually curious when it did become acceptable in polite society to say that "we just want to kill the competition".

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#79

Post by Fawlty »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #54

We need a new word for this. We say OpenTF is (or will be) a fork, and forks are bad, nuclear option, etc, but really, Hashicorp are the ones who made a breaking change, and the "fork" merely maintains that which already was, but for reasons, are not allowed to continue using their own name. We need for the shortest sound-bite 3-word sentence to the non-technical to somehow use terminology that says that the entity t…

afaik you can't use terraform in the name, it's trademarked by Hashicorp

Re: The OpenTF Manifesto

#80

Post by PeterZaitsev »

dijit wrote: post #72
Brian_K_White wrote: post #54

We need a new word for this. We say OpenTF is (or will be) a fork, and forks are bad, nuclear option, etc, but really, Hashicorp are the ones who made a breaking change, and the "fork" merely maintains that which already was, but for reasons, are not allowed to continue using their own name. We need for the shortest sound-bite 3-word sentence to the non-technical to somehow use terminology that says that the entity t…

The issue with that is the ownership of the name. Name is identity, and thus the canonical representation of "Terraform" is now BSL. However, if you don't have an identifier such as the trademarked name and you look at the project itself then I think you're right.

Do not mix source code license with Trademark. Trademark use is focused by Trademark policy which is here for Hashicorp https://www.hashicorp.com/trademark-policy
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