Terraform’s License Change

Hey everyone,

I hope you’re doing well. Today, I wanted to dive into a topic that’s been making waves in the DevOps community: Terraform’s recent license change. As someone who’s been using Terraform infrastructure as code (IaC) for 2 years, this news caught my attention, and I’m sure it’s the same with many of you.

First things first, let’s unpack what exactly happened. HashiCorp, the company behind Terraform, announced a shift in their licensing model. They’ve moved from the Mozilla Public License v2.0 (MPL 2.0) to a proprietary Business Source License (BSL) on August 10, 2023. Essentially, this means they retain more control over the software and can relicense it in the future as they see fit.

Now, reactions to this change have been mixed, to say the least. As a Terrafrom user, I can’t help but feel a bit uneasy. Terraform has long been a beacon of transparency and community-driven development. This license change, while understandable from a business standpoint, feels like a departure from those open source principles/values.

Many in the community share this sentiment. There’s a sense of concern about what this means for Terraform’s future openness and transparency. After all, open source software thrives on collaboration and trust. Anything that threatens that foundation is cause for pause.