HashiCorp’s licence change
On 10 August 2023 HashiCorp changes the licence of its products (Terraform, Vault, Consul, Packer, Boundary, Nomad, Vagrant, Waypoint) from MPL 2.0 to Business Source License 1.1 (BUSL). Impact: commercial vendors “competing with HashiCorp” can no longer use or redistribute the code.
The community reacts quickly: The OpenTF Manifesto (19 August 2023) collects signatures from Gruntwork, Harness, Spacelift, env0, Scalr, Terragrunt users, thousands of developers.
The fork
OpenTofu is the official Terraform fork. Version 1.6.0 released on 10 January 2024. Donated to Linux Foundation (via CNCF) in September 2023. MPL 2.0 licence. Drop-in compatible with Terraform: just change terraform → tofu.
# Instead of:
terraform init && terraform plan && terraform apply
# Use:
tofu init && tofu plan && tofu applySponsors and governance
- Linux Foundation — project owner
- CNCF — technical governance
- Main sponsors: Oracle, AWS, Harness, Gruntwork, Spacelift, env0, Scalr, GitHub
- Public Steering Committee
Added features
OpenTofu has developed features not present in Terraform:
- Encryption — native state file encryption (AES-GCM)
- Provider Iteration (for_each on providers) — instantiate providers with loops
- Static evaluation improvement — more composable modules
- Test framework — evolution of
terraform test - Remove block — resource removal without destroy
Providers and modules
- OpenTofu Provider Registry —
registry.opentofu.org, mirror of Terraform Registry providers - Module compatibility — Terraform modules work without modification
- Some open source providers are certified for both
Terraform vs OpenTofu 2026
| Terraform | OpenTofu | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | BUSL 1.1 | MPL 2.0 |
| Governance | HashiCorp (IBM since 2024) | Linux Foundation |
| Community | Large | Rapidly growing |
| Features | Baseline + HashiCorp cloud | Baseline + innovations |
| Compatibility | — | Drop-in 1.6/1.7 |
IBM acquires HashiCorp
On 27 February 2025 IBM completes the acquisition of HashiCorp for ~$6.4B. Consequences still evolving: some community voices call for return to open licences, others fear further commercial drift.
In the Italian context
OpenTofu is gaining adoption in Italy among:
- Companies with strict OSS licence policies (avoid BUSL)
- Digital PA — OSS regulatory requirements
- Italian MSPs and system integrators offering managed IaC (many BUSL-incompatible)
- Platform engineering teams wanting Linux Foundation governance
- Multi-cloud startups
Transition is made easy by drop-in compatibility: terraform → tofu and pipelines work immediately.
References: OpenTofu 1.6 (10 January 2024). Linux Foundation. Fork of Terraform after HashiCorp change to BUSL (10 August 2023). MPL 2.0 licence. Sponsors: Oracle, AWS, Harness, Gruntwork, Spacelift. IBM acquires HashiCorp (27 February 2025).