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we support our employees working on open source during their Friday projects This is very different than hashicorps model of paying people to work on the opens

by sontek 3y ago

we support our employees working on open source during their Friday projects This is very different than hashicorps model of paying people to work on the opensource project during their working hours. Making it a core part of their job. If we are to accept that the OpenTF foundation is going to be a better maintainer of terraform we need something better than "Hack on opensource if you want to!" Spacelift doesn't have a good track record of contributing to opensource so the current model isn't working. Also, Jacob started OctoSQL before ever joining Spacelift so its pretty odd to use that as an example of spacelift doing OSS well. Especially since his activity on his has tanked since joining you.

cube2222 3y ago
> If we are to accept that the OpenTF foundation is going to be a better maintainer of terraform we need something better than "Hack on opensource if you want to!" The plan is for the foundation to employ dedicated engineers that we can sponsor. Regarding open source vs closed source, I have nothing against closed source software. I think the outrage about Terraform specifically is caused by people seeing it more as an ecosystem, not a product (like Vault or Consul), and the whole thing looks like a bait-and-switch of reaping the benefits of open source (and others building a provider ecosystem) and then closing that down, once you start getting the cons of open source (healthy competition building inside of that ecosystem). Honestly, I'm grateful for Hashicorp for the contributions they've made over all these years, and the libraries they've built. And as is the beauty of open source, in a situation like this, we can just fork, which we're doing. In a dream scenario, HashiCorp would eventually join us working on OpenTF in the open, with the load much better distributed across companies, and the roadmap better reflecting the community's needs. I don't think, however, that it's fair to call these companies freeloaders who just now decided to contribute, as HashiCorp quite openly didn't encourage community involvement in the development process of their core open source projects. All in all, I hope we'll do a much better job of involving the community in the core development and decision-making process (via public RFCs), while the foundation part means you don't have to trust any of the companies specifically. A healthy open-source ecosystem here is both good for the companies using it (partly due to no vendor lock-in, better competition, more innovation, lower prices), as it is for companies building products that extend tools in that ecosystem, as it is for any individuals involved. It's a win-win-win situation. Disclaimer: Work at Spacelift, and currently temporary Technical Lead of the OpenTF Project, until it's committee-steered.

by sontek 3y ago

cube2222 3y ago

> If we are to accept that the OpenTF foundation is going to be a better maintainer of terraform we need something better than "Hack on opensource if you want to!" The plan is for the foundation to employ dedicated engineers that we can sponsor. Regarding open source vs closed source, I have nothing against closed source software. I think the outrage about Terraform specifically is caused by people seeing it more as an ecosystem, not a product (like Vault or Consul), and the whole thing looks like a bait-and-switch of reaping the benefits of open source (and others building a provider ecosystem) and then closing that down, once you start getting the cons of open source (healthy competition building inside of that ecosystem). Honestly, I'm grateful for Hashicorp for the contributions they've made over all these years, and the libraries they've built. And as is the beauty of open source, in a situation like this, we can just fork, which we're doing. In a dream scenario, HashiCorp would eventually join us working on OpenTF in the open, with the load much better distributed across companies, and the roadmap better reflecting the community's needs. I don't think, however, that it's fair to call these companies freeloaders who just now decided to contribute, as HashiCorp quite openly didn't encourage community involvement in the development process of their core open source projects. All in all, I hope we'll do a much better job of involving the community in the core development and decision-making process (via public RFCs), while the foundation part means you don't have to trust any of the companies specifically. A healthy open-source ecosystem here is both good for the companies using it (partly due to no vendor lock-in, better competition, more innovation, lower prices), as it is for companies building products that extend tools in that ecosystem, as it is for any individuals involved. It's a win-win-win situation. Disclaimer: Work at Spacelift, and currently temporary Technical Lead of the OpenTF Project, until it's committee-steered.