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> They could be focusing on the licence and their perception of Hashicorp They literally do: "HashiCorp even had all contributors sign a CLA which explicitly

> They could be focusing on the licence and their perception of Hashicorp They literally do: "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): [...] 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." [1] I agree with the overall sentiment, but they could've left out all the judging side comments. [1] Source: https://opentf.org/#why-fork https://opentf.org/#why-fork

jen20 3y ago
> "HashiCorp even had all contributors sign a CLA Of course, this is untrue. They may have had all contributors after some specific date sign one, but it is simply untrue that all contributors have signed one at all.
- mattl 3y ago
  How did they relicense without one?
  - fishnchips 3y ago
    How indeed.
    - jen20 3y ago
      Directly answered by [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266016
      - fishnchips 3y ago
        Answered incorrectly. All the code is relicensed with BUSL header on each and every file.
        jen20 3y ago
        Again, wrong. Whether that has been done is independent of whether that is permissible, based on copyright assignment.
        fishnchips 3y ago
        Are you implying they had no right to do that?
        CuriousCosmic 3y ago
        Strictly speaking it is on Hashicorp to prove that they had the right to re-license the code. Which would require listing all contributors and whether a given contributor gave written agreement to re-license the code or whether they had signed a CTA or CLA. To my knowledge they have not done that so anybody whose code is being used without permission could fight them on copyright infringement. And worth noting is that they don't have a particularly small number of contributors. Terraform has over 1700 contributors and many of the other repos have over 1000 contributors or close to 1000 contributors (unsure of the overlap). If they only started requiring a CLA or CTA later into their development, they probably haven't gotten permission from all the rights holders.
        jeremyjh 3y ago
        Changing the license in the repo does not change the license of files you have already distributed under the MPL. That would require them to revoke all those licenses, which they can't do under the terms of that license that they've already agreed to. This entire thread and OpenTF, and maybe all of OSS itself would probably not exist if that were not the case. In the official repo I can still check out an older commit with the MPL on it, which means they are still distributing code under that license, but it wouldn't matter if that were the case or not under the law. edit: In fact, software as a business ( and many other professions ) would not exist if license terms could be changed or revoked after distribution. License changes for new software to be distributed can change, sure. But short of a breach of contract as outlined in the license itself you cannot change a license you have granted.
  - jen20 3y ago
    They did not relicense. All HashiCorp have done is made their own future contributions subject to BSL, not relicensed any previous contribution, nor do they have the ability to do that without copyright assignment of each and every contribution, which they do not have (specifically I have never signed a copyright assignment, and nor has at least one other of the top ten contributors of all time). Nothing about MPLv2 prevents inclusion in a commercial product provided the attribution and file-based copyleft provisions are followed.
    - foota 3y ago
      Is that something you can do? I wouldn't have thought there previous license would be compatible with the BSL, and so distributing the software under the BSL wouldn't be possible?
      - jaggederest 3y ago
        It's standard for BSD and MIT style licenses and similar to just require the copyright notice be retained in e.g. a LICENSE file or equivalent. A bunch of commercial software right now (cough I'm writing this on MacOS) uses BSD-licensed foundations.
        jen20 3y ago
        MPLv2 is file-based copyleft, and there are no restrictions on including it in a commercial work provided that changes to MPLv2-licensed files are accessible per the terms. Indeed it’s something of a spiritual successor to CDDL which was designed precisely for that purpose (although reliable sources also say it was designed to be GPL-incompatible, so that is literally a he-said/she-said case).
        erincandescent 3y ago
        The CDDL is an MPLv1 derivative, so similarities should be unsurprising
      - deleted 3y ago
  - Jka9rhnDJos 3y ago
    Remove the code from the repo, put it in another repo, probably. I don’t remember signing a CLA 7 years ago, but somehow they relicensed without me needing to agree. All my code was pulled out into a separate package/plugin that is still MIT.
wokwokwok 3y ago
Oh come now, that’s a stretch. In the announcement literally the only mention of this is: > The manifesto outlined the intent of the OpenTF initiative in two steps — the first was to appeal to HashiCorp to return Terraform to the community and revert the license change they were making for this project. The second, in case the license was not reverted, was to fork the Terraform project as OpenTF. > Since no reversal has been done, and no intent to do one has been communicated, we’re proud to announce that we have created a fork of Terraform called OpenTF. What you’ve quoted and linked to is the manifesto before this announcement. They could have played the announcement much differently to how they did, but they chose not to, and chose to focus on the positives instead. It’s not even in the announcement faq. > they could've left out all the judging side comments. That is literally what they did. I imagine the manifesto will disappear now that it is, obviously, superseded. Just give it a tiny bit of time, yeah? Come on, what they’re doing seems like good work, well played and without nastiness.
- joshpadnick 3y ago
  OpenTF core member here. To build on this comment, we've tried to intentionally focus on positively meeting our needs, not on negatively villifying another company for trying to meet their needs. You can see a good example of this in https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto/issues/165#issuecomment-1681207859 https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto/issues/165#iss.... We do not fault HashiCorp for trying to build a thriving business and we respect their amazing achievements and contributions. However, on this one issue of the Terraform license, we do not agree with their position and believe strongly in the need for a truly open source, community-driven Terraform.
  - JellyBeanThief 3y ago
    Man, you guys should give a masterclass on launching open-source forks with professionalism and positivity.
osigurdson 3y ago
Can anyone fork and change the license? I assume yes if originally MIT or similar. I wish it were not the case. It should be more like contributors get paid like employees retroactively in a situation like this but no idea how something could be structured like this.
- Xylakant 3y ago
  Strictly speaking, no. MIT does not give you permissions to change the license. But you can incorporate MIT licensed code into a project that contains code that is under a different license of your choice, open or closed source for a nearly identical effect. So you can just license all future contributions under AGPL and use the MIT licensed code, effectively making the combined work AGPL. But the MIT part remains MIT, anyone could fork your project, remove all AGPL code and return to MIT. It’s wise to clearly mark which code is which, especially since MIT requires that the copyright notice must be retained: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
  - osigurdson 3y ago
    Well, the only action I can take is to stop being a HCP shareholder - which is happening on Monday.

jen20 3y ago

> "HashiCorp even had all contributors sign a CLA Of course, this is untrue. They may have had all contributors after some specific date sign one, but it is simply untrue that all contributors have signed one at all.

mattl 3y ago
How did they relicense without one?
- fishnchips 3y ago
  How indeed.
  - jen20 3y ago
    Directly answered by [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266016
    - fishnchips 3y ago
      Answered incorrectly. All the code is relicensed with BUSL header on each and every file.
      - jen20 3y ago
        Again, wrong. Whether that has been done is independent of whether that is permissible, based on copyright assignment.
        fishnchips 3y ago
        Are you implying they had no right to do that?
        CuriousCosmic 3y ago
        Strictly speaking it is on Hashicorp to prove that they had the right to re-license the code. Which would require listing all contributors and whether a given contributor gave written agreement to re-license the code or whether they had signed a CTA or CLA. To my knowledge they have not done that so anybody whose code is being used without permission could fight them on copyright infringement. And worth noting is that they don't have a particularly small number of contributors. Terraform has over 1700 contributors and many of the other repos have over 1000 contributors or close to 1000 contributors (unsure of the overlap). If they only started requiring a CLA or CTA later into their development, they probably haven't gotten permission from all the rights holders.
      - jeremyjh 3y ago
        Changing the license in the repo does not change the license of files you have already distributed under the MPL. That would require them to revoke all those licenses, which they can't do under the terms of that license that they've already agreed to. This entire thread and OpenTF, and maybe all of OSS itself would probably not exist if that were not the case. In the official repo I can still check out an older commit with the MPL on it, which means they are still distributing code under that license, but it wouldn't matter if that were the case or not under the law. edit: In fact, software as a business ( and many other professions ) would not exist if license terms could be changed or revoked after distribution. License changes for new software to be distributed can change, sure. But short of a breach of contract as outlined in the license itself you cannot change a license you have granted.
- jen20 3y ago
  They did not relicense. All HashiCorp have done is made their own future contributions subject to BSL, not relicensed any previous contribution, nor do they have the ability to do that without copyright assignment of each and every contribution, which they do not have (specifically I have never signed a copyright assignment, and nor has at least one other of the top ten contributors of all time). Nothing about MPLv2 prevents inclusion in a commercial product provided the attribution and file-based copyleft provisions are followed.
  - foota 3y ago
    Is that something you can do? I wouldn't have thought there previous license would be compatible with the BSL, and so distributing the software under the BSL wouldn't be possible?
    - jaggederest 3y ago
      It's standard for BSD and MIT style licenses and similar to just require the copyright notice be retained in e.g. a LICENSE file or equivalent. A bunch of commercial software right now (cough I'm writing this on MacOS) uses BSD-licensed foundations.
      - jen20 3y ago
        MPLv2 is file-based copyleft, and there are no restrictions on including it in a commercial work provided that changes to MPLv2-licensed files are accessible per the terms. Indeed it’s something of a spiritual successor to CDDL which was designed precisely for that purpose (although reliable sources also say it was designed to be GPL-incompatible, so that is literally a he-said/she-said case).
        erincandescent 3y ago
        The CDDL is an MPLv1 derivative, so similarities should be unsurprising
    - deleted 3y ago
- Jka9rhnDJos 3y ago
  Remove the code from the repo, put it in another repo, probably. I don’t remember signing a CLA 7 years ago, but somehow they relicensed without me needing to agree. All my code was pulled out into a separate package/plugin that is still MIT.

wokwokwok 3y ago

Oh come now, that’s a stretch. In the announcement literally the only mention of this is: > The manifesto outlined the intent of the OpenTF initiative in two steps — the first was to appeal to HashiCorp to return Terraform to the community and revert the license change they were making for this project. The second, in case the license was not reverted, was to fork the Terraform project as OpenTF. > Since no reversal has been done, and no intent to do one has been communicated, we’re proud to announce that we have created a fork of Terraform called OpenTF. What you’ve quoted and linked to is the manifesto before this announcement. They could have played the announcement much differently to how they did, but they chose not to, and chose to focus on the positives instead. It’s not even in the announcement faq. > they could've left out all the judging side comments. That is literally what they did. I imagine the manifesto will disappear now that it is, obviously, superseded. Just give it a tiny bit of time, yeah? Come on, what they’re doing seems like good work, well played and without nastiness.

joshpadnick 3y ago
OpenTF core member here. To build on this comment, we've tried to intentionally focus on positively meeting our needs, not on negatively villifying another company for trying to meet their needs. You can see a good example of this in https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto/issues/165#issuecomment-1681207859 https://github.com/opentffoundation/manifesto/issues/165#iss.... We do not fault HashiCorp for trying to build a thriving business and we respect their amazing achievements and contributions. However, on this one issue of the Terraform license, we do not agree with their position and believe strongly in the need for a truly open source, community-driven Terraform.
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
  Man, you guys should give a masterclass on launching open-source forks with professionalism and positivity.

osigurdson 3y ago

Can anyone fork and change the license? I assume yes if originally MIT or similar. I wish it were not the case. It should be more like contributors get paid like employees retroactively in a situation like this but no idea how something could be structured like this.

Xylakant 3y ago
Strictly speaking, no. MIT does not give you permissions to change the license. But you can incorporate MIT licensed code into a project that contains code that is under a different license of your choice, open or closed source for a nearly identical effect. So you can just license all future contributions under AGPL and use the MIT licensed code, effectively making the combined work AGPL. But the MIT part remains MIT, anyone could fork your project, remove all AGPL code and return to MIT. It’s wise to clearly mark which code is which, especially since MIT requires that the copyright notice must be retained: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  Well, the only action I can take is to stop being a HCP shareholder - which is happening on Monday.