Ensure Terraform remains truly open-source. Always.
Previously named OpenTF, OpenTofu is a fork of Terraform that is open-source, community-driven, and will be managed by the Linux 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 subject 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.
How to use and contribute to OpenTofu?
The best way to show practical support for the OpenTofu initiative is to contribute. This contribution guide explains OpenTofu contribution recommended practices, including how to submit issues, how to get involved in the discussion, how to work on the code, and how to contribute code changes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OpenTofu 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 subject 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 subject 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 OpenTofu 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.
Supporters
- Supporting Companies: 144144
- Supporting Projects: 1010
- Supporting Foundations: 11
- Supporting Individuals: 719719
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
How to support OpenTofu in pledging?
Pledging to the OpenTofu 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.
Latest News
The OpenTF fork is now available!
Four weeks ago, HashiCorp switched Terraform from an open source license to the Business Source License (BSL); three weeks ago, we released the OpenTF manifesto, asking HashiCorp to switch back to an open source license; two weeks ago, with no response from HashiCorp, we created a private fork of Terraform and said we'd make it public in 1-2 weeks; and today, as promised, we're happy to announce that the OpenTF repository is now publicly available at github.com/opentffoundation/opentf!