[res0nat0r]

I suspect this project is going to consist of a very loud minority of folks. I'm working for a very large company right now and they've been mandating us to move all of our TF code to Terraform Cloud for the last year, and I've not heard a peep about this licensing issue. I'm assuming they're going full steam ahead and don't care about this issue. As long as the TF Cloud service is easy to use, still a SaaS so it's TF's problem vs the companies, and they allow a robust login / access pattern via OAuth / SAML, all is well.

[joshpadnick]

OpenTF core member here. If you're comfortable opting into an ecosystem where most of the key products are offered and supported by a single vendor (in this case, Hashicorp), then yes, there are no licensing issues to worry about and basically nothing needs to change for now.

But our philosophy at OpenTF is that users would rather participate in an open ecosystem where multiple vendors compete for their business. If you're not happy with one vendor, you can easily switch to another; competition works to make all vendors better.

When we look back at this comment a year from now, I'll wonder how your company will feel about the responsiveness and new features they're getting from Terraform Cloud when the primary incentive to stay is not because you think it's the best product available, but because switching costs are so painful.

[res0nat0r]

Honestly, I think when it comes to the large companies I've worked for, they care more than anything else revolves around "support". 15+ years ago the my previous company was all Sun Microsystems based, owned millions of dollars in 880s, 6800s and even an E10K. They said Linux was off limits because they couldn't blame/call anyone when they needed "support", even when Redhat was already around.

Eventually they saw the writing on the wall and moved to Linux systems and replaced all of the hardware, and have an enterprise RHEL subscription that we could call when needed.

I think the story is going to be the same with the current company, mainly "who can we blame if there is a security incident, or get me a Hashicorp person on the phone if we have some kind of Terraform related production issue." Having this in place seems to matter more than everything else honestly.

[zeroimpl]

I'm not sure companies care much about support for "simple" tools like Terraform, at least the non-hosted version. Operating systems have lots of dark corners, but if your Terraform deployment isn't working then the problem is likely your code.

[waynesonfire]

Probably a good idea to continue with that initiative. OpenTF is new. However, your CTO should contribute to the OpenTF effort.

I would like to see more companies that leverage open-source contribute back to the very community that enables their value creation.