OpenTofu, the fork of Terraform created in response to a controversial license change, joined the Linux Foundation almost immediately upon its launch. It quickly won high-profile supporters and adopters, including heavyweights like Oracle and VMWare.

Recently, OpenTofu took the next step by joining the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Notably, in order to facilitate the move, CNCF approved an exemption for OpenTofu to remain under the Mozilla Public License (CNCF normally requires all of its projects to be licensed under the Apache License).

The news is a significant development for the COSS landscape. Here’s why:

1. Strengthening Open Governance: The move is a win for those who advocate open governance models within the OSS ecosystem. OpenTofu will likely be seen by these advocates as a poster child for the idea of vendor-neutral, community-driven initiatives, which they argue are the only way to protect open source from corporate dominance.
2. More Options for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions: OpenTofu’s rapid adoption highlights just how big the demand was for an open source alternative to Terraform. With CNCF’s backing, OpenTofu is poised to continue challenging Terraform. That will create opportunities for companies and entrepreneurs to address new needs and challenges created by adoption of OpenTofu.
3. Community-Driven Development: CNCF’s support gives OpenTofu a robust framework for collaboration and growth. This aligns with the goal of building active, well-organized communities around OSS projects, which leads to faster development cycles and more secure, reliable software.
4. Implications for HashiCorp and Beyond: OpenTofu’s meteoric rise underscores the consequences of HashiCorp’s licensing shift to the non-OSS Business Source License (BSL). It’s easy to wonder whether HashiCorp expected this to happen when it decided to change licenses, but its threats of legal action against OpenTofu suggest that OpenTofu’s success has been far greater than HashiCorp anticipated.
5. Broader Tech Industry Impact: The CNCF’s decision to make an exception for OpenTofu’s licensing, which was the first such exemption ever granted by CNCF, demonstrates that CNCF’s licensing policy isn’t quite set in stone. That could set a precedent both for CNCF and for projects seeking to join CNCF.