Oops, I should've announced this: folks, I am all alive and fine — I am just not posting thoughts about re:Invent for now!

I appreciate all the slightly-panicked DMs y'all sent me and I am flattered that you were so concerned 😊

1/12 (thread to explain why I am not posting)

What is the first reason I am not posting about re:Invent? It's not my style.

I hate "first look" posts —  I consider them high-risk (I could be wrong) and low-value (everybody does that + I will have a deeper dive posted in December*). For me, it's not worth it 🤷

2/12

What is the big reason am I not posting about re:Invent? Confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure agreements.

This is mildly braggy, but I know a lot of "secret" stuff which makes my style of posting A LOT more complicated!

Let me tell you how messy this gets... 3/12

You know how AWS goes on stage, presents a new thing, and then goes "and folks at Company_A have been using this already and they saved X% dollars, moved Y% faster, did Z% better"?

I might or might not have been involved in testing some things 🤐

4/12

You know how AWS is customer-focused? AWS legit builds most things because customers yell and demand those things!

I might or might not be known for chatting with AWS about things 🤭

5/12

You know how AWS has AWS Heroes — a group of highly-respected super-skilled community members that get to talk with AWS? Somehow I am part of that group.

AWS Heroes literally got 14 hours(±, it's fuzzy) of pre-briefings with "this is what we're launching at re:Invent" 🧑‍🏫
6/12

ALL those things led to me knowing a lot of "secret" details about what AWS launched or will launch at re:Invent.

Or that will be launched next year. Or in two/three years cause some things take time. Or never cause, you know, reality is cruel sometimes.

7/12

ALL that information must remain secret until AWS makes it public

That means I can either:
1) share generic stuff ➡️ Boring!
2) share actually useful stuff, but only after I double-check what was released, what is public, and what is not public ➡️ Impossible/a lot of work!

8/12

I'd hate to post something like "AWS just announced Service-A with support for X, Y, and Z" aaaaand then to find out that support for Z did not actually make the release and that will be announced in January.

🤦‍♂️

9/12

I'd hate to post something like "yeah, AWS announced Service-B which they described as Y but actually when I used it it was more like Z" aaaaand then to find out they actually fixed that issue since I last tested it.

🤦‍♂️

10/12

I'd hate to post something like "wooo, AWS Service-C now supports W by doing X which means you can now do Y with no effort" aaaaaand then to find out that those details were actually still secret and that they would only be revealed in a session Friday afternoon.

🤦‍♂️

11/12

So yeah, I will continue to remain kinda quiet during re:Invent. But I will be back to blabbing my mouth in December and January!

Some blabbing will be public and some blabbing will be private, but I will be back to annoying you all!

12/12

Why I am not posting about re:Invent

Some clarifications, since it's clear I failed at properly communicating in the quoted thread 😓

TL;DR:
- strong words are used to express strong feelings
- nobody paid me to write that
- I do know what I am talking about
- I criticized OpenTF based on their public actions

1/8

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1696521808143683812

🤬 Strong words have a role

I find spreading misinformation absolutely fucking disgusting and I will refer to it as such. I may even be nice and remove the f-word but I will not describe it as "bad" just to be nice. That would be fake, insincere, and inaccurate.

2/8

💸 Nobody paid me

This is going to sound even more preachy than the OpenTF manifesto, but I felt compelled to say something when I saw clearly misinformed tech leaders/influencers praising this as "a beacon of open-source" when the reality I was seeing was wildly different.

3/8

😎 Being an overpaid independent consultant, I am privileged as heck

I don't have to worry about pissing off AWS or HashiCorp (some people may remember a previous debacle where I *really* blasted them over some shitty Terraform modules) or OpenTF or anybody else.

4/8

🙈 Others can't share their thoughts

There were people that privately reached out to thank me for writing all that and for explaining the whole situation since they can't speak out due to potential impact on their job/life/etc.

5/8

🧠 I do know Terraform

I was trying to be humble when I said "I am not a Terraform expert" but that was absolutely not clear to people that don't know my work. Sorry!

I do know what I am talking about and I did a bunch of research before posting the original 1/75 thread.

6/8

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1696521963748065332?s=20

🗣️ I criticized the actions and public statements made by OpenTF

If OpenTF's public statements did not paint the whole picture or if their communications were incomplete, then there is a chance my whole thread is wrong. As you can see, communication is hard!

7/8

If OpenTF just had a very _very_ *very* bad start then I look forward to them recovering and getting serious. I'd love to be proven wrong!

I doubt that will happen, but 🤞. HashiCorp needs a kick in the butt, ahem, an incentive to do better and OpenTF could be that.

8/8

Clarifications on "OpenTF is disconnected from reality"

OpenTF is disconnected from reality.

They don't understand Terraform, they don't understand users, they don't understand the ecosystem, and they don't even understand who's at the table. Or that there is a table!

Let me explain how dumb this whole thing is... 🧵

1/75 (i know)

TL;DR: OpenTF is a failure and you should not be taking it seriously. At all.

This will be a very long thread.  I know and I am sorry for that, but y'all really need to see the whole story to understand how utterly pathetic this whole drama is.

2/75

First up, some history.

On August 10 HashiCorp (the company behind Terraform, Vault, Packer, Vagrant, Nomad, Waypoint, Consul, and Boundary) changed licenses from the open-source MPL2.0 to the source-availabe-but-only-some-can-use-products-in-production-fuck-you BUSL1.1.

3/75

All of HashiCorp's products were affected, but Terraform is huge and OpenTF is focusing on Terraform so we'll also focus on that here.

We won't discuss why HashiCorp changed their license, what dumb things HashiCorp did or still does, or anything like that.

4/75

When HashiCorp announced the license change, there was ✨drama✨ and, after a little while, OpenTF posted a manifesto.

The manifesto was pretty much "HashiCorp, please make Terraform open-source again cause it's awesome. We don't wanna be forced to fork it".

5/75

OpenTF really looked legitimate!

Sure, the manifesto was preachy as heck.
Sure, the name was a bit on the nose.
Sure, it was very early.

Whatever. It was looking very legit!

6/75

OpenTF got even more legit with support from key players in the Terraform community:

- GruntWork and CloudPosse, critical consulting companies advancing Terraform, pledged support
- Spacelift, a leading Terraform automation SaaS (and HashiCorp competitor), pledged support

7/75

OpenTF got even more legit: somebody that wasn't even in the Terraform community joined!

Oxide Company, a server hardware company that was using Terraform in their product, pledged support.
This meant "outside" traction and that was, in my view, a game-changer.

8/75

I, like the optimistic dumbass that I am, tweeted that.

I genuinely believed that OpenTF was legitimate and serious!

9/75

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1691551956987265057

Aaaaand then things took a turn for the worse.

OpenTF got no other traction or support. If you were looking at the pledges on the manifesto there was a flurry of support coming in, but that was all bogus.

10/75

OpenTF got spammed with fake support.

Every single proof-of-concept Terraform Cloud startup pledged support.
Random 2-person consulting companies pledged support.
Random individuals pledged support.
Random first-year college students pledged support.

11/75

OpenTF had very little support that was real.

Of course everybody added their names to a list — it's free marketing without any real commitment!

"Sign here to save the starving orphans" is very different from "every evening spend 3 hours cooking for orphans", you know?

12/75

There were only a handful of legitimate supporters: Gruntwork, Spacelift, evn0, and Scalr. That's it!

Sure, other companies and individuals pledged _something_ but that was  cheap marketing or just a show of initiative. The 4 companies above pledged actual resources!

13/75

Gruntwork is 25% of the legitimate supporters.

They are a consulting company. They started with Terraform consulting, then built open-source tooling around Terraform, paid Terraform templates, support and more.

They are awesome! They also pledged very abstract support.

14/75

The other 75% of legitimate supporters are Terraform Cloud competitors.

I'm not holding it against them, but they are the tiny percentage of people impacted by license change: they would have to pay licensing fees (debatable, but let's not get into legal stuff here).

15/75

That 75% of legitimate supporters aren't even that legitimate.

Spacelift, env0, and Scalr are startups: small and early companies. Hungry and determined, yes. But definitely not stable, mature, or with a plethora of resources at their disposal.

16/75

That's it!

OpenTF = 1 small consulting company + 3 small companies that would have to pay licensing fees without OpenTF + a bunch of empty shows of support from random people.

There is no community rallying behind OpenTF!

17/75

The community did not rally behind OpenTF. The community did not in any way, shape, or form show support for OpenTF. The community ignored OpenTF or passively watched the ✨drama✨.

OpenTF sure manipulated public perception though!

18/75

OpenTF did great PR and marketing and, in my view, started to manipulate people.

OpenTF bragged to journalists about their spammy and fake numbers.
The companies behind OpenTF posted preachy and grandiose blog posts.

Aaaand everybody ate that shit up 🤦‍♂️

19/75

As an aside, tech journalism is broken.

Without any due diligence or review, an overwhelming majority of journalists stupidly repeated the "over 100 companies and more than 350 individuals" line they got fed. WTF y'all couldn't even look at the list and click some links?!

20/75

Meanwhile, I was thinking that OpenTF was working on stuff in private.

I hoped they were talking with people and companies. I thought they were building up numbers. I assumed they were negotiating support.

We now know that OpenTF was coordinating PR puff pieces.

21/75

OpenTF could have tried to gather more support. We now know they did not.

Nobody else that mattered joined — 0 other big players in the Terraform ecosystem, 0 cloud providers (even small ones), 0 serious companies.

The list of supporters was growing but it was useless.

22/75

On August 18, OpenTF posted an update: HashiCorp MUST answer them by August 25.

Yes, OpenTF was DEMANDING that HashiCorp answer them and change Teraform's license back to the open-source MPL2.0 by August 25.

Yes, the barely-any-support OpenTF was now demanding things 🤣

23/75

https://twitter.com/opentforg/status/1692602243701186852

OpenTF's demand showed they have no idea how this all works.

If you're in a fight with somebody and genuinely want to resolve the conflict you don't yell and scream in the streets. You take a breather and then discuss the problem in private. It's the same for business!

24/75

OpenTF could've demanded things nicely. OpenTF could've reached out to HashiCorp to figure out something mutually beneficial. OpenTF could've done so many other things.

Instead, OpenTF chose to make this needlessly aggressive.

25/75

At this point I realized OpenTF was complete bullshit.

I was hoping OpenTF would realize how silly this is and that they would regroup or that the whole drama would die down, so I only tweeted a meme and a "nevermind".

The drama did not die down, as you can see.

26/75

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1693354475266638059

I tried to ignore this hoping it would go away. It did not.

In the following days OpenTF continued their marketing and PR efforts by spreading bullshit. They also made it very clear how out of their depth they are. Let me explain what I mean...

27/75

OpenTF does not understand how open-source works.

They assume Terraform is just a GitHub repository and that's it. That could not be further from the truth, but it looked great when they posted graphs of commits that showed just 5 HashiCorp engineers making changes.

28/75

Terraform is a lot more than 1 GitHub repository!

Terraform is HashiCorp talking with thousands of companies to figure out what to build.
Terraform is HashiCorp collaborating under NDA with clouds, vendors, and community members to build for the reality of tomorrow.

29/75

Terraform is a lot more than 1 GitHub repository!

The Terraform on GitHub is the "main", "stable", and "safe" version of Terraform. There are many forks and experimental versions of Terraform out there—some at HashiCorp, some at HashiCorp's partners, some in the wild.

30/75

Terraform is a lot more than 1 GitHub repository!

Terraform is not just code. Terraform is thousands of design documents, tens of thousands of discarded features and PRs, and millions of hours of engineering.

That's all hidden from us because HashiCorp handles it all!

31/75

But noooo, dumb-fuck OpenTF has the same level of understanding as an Intern: it's all code, how hard can it be? Just throw a bunch of developers at it and it'll be perfect!

Product people? HA, losers!
Documentation? HA, bums!
Talking to customers? HA, idiots not needed!

32/75

This was all a bit abstract and rant-y, so let's look at 2 examples.

When they should've been building up support, OpenTF was actually giving interviews, so we have a lot of examples of them being totally disconnected from reality and showing just how idiotic they are.

33/75

OpenTF doesn't even understand Terraform and I believe there are 2 examples that can resume the vast stupidity of OpenTF.

Example 1: state encryption.
Example 2: alternative interfaces.

I know this thread is long, but let's discuss these!

34/75

OpenTF doesn't even understand Terraform: state encryption.

An example of "look how mean HashiCorp is, they don't accept features and don't wanna work with the community" that OpenTF loves to quote is  this pull request:

https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform/pull/28603

35/75

For folks that aren't deep into the Terraform world, Terraform basically keeps a list of all the resources it manages in a "state file". That file may include sensitive data if you're not careful.

The #28603 pull request is pretty much an "encrypt the state file" feature.

36/75

It sounds good, right? Who would not want potentially sensitive data encrypted? Because it sounds so good OpenTF uses it as an example.

But it's shit. Utter shit. A horrible feature to have. Which is why it wasn't added to Terraform.

37/75

Why is it shit?

What happens if you lose the key that was used to encrypt the whole list of cloud resources? Terraform is suddenly useless because it has no idea what resources to manage. Terraform just exploded in a customer's face, in an unrecoverable way.

38/75

Why is it shit?

Who actually has access to that maybe-sensitive state file that it needs to be encrypted? In reality, with common and not complex defaults that most people use, only machines have access to that file. And the file is encrypted at rest. And access is logged

39/75

This feature is pretty much "to protect the President of the USA it's not enough to have the Secret Service, bulletproof cars, and all that — we need to put Biden in a 2-ton metal cube that can only be opened with 1 flimsy key. Air for him to breathe, seeing him? Meh".

40/75

OpenTF does not understand Terraform users.

OpenTF does not understand that people sometime lose keys. Storage failure, accidental deletes, etc.
OpenTF does not understand that errors happen.
OpenTF does not understand that users need to balance security with usability.

41/75

I imagine HashiCorp understands this.

And even if they don't, they talked to a bunch of companies and collected feedback about the idea. Feedback that amounted to pretty much "nice, but too much of a footgun so maybe not".

Of course HashiCorp didn't merge the PR!

42/75

As an aside, that's not how open-source works!

You don't just randomly send a 2000-line change! You talk with the maintainers first: validate the idea, ask if somebody already looked into this and the results, ask if the maintainers would accept an implementation, etc.

43/75

Also, HashiCorp did not ignore this risk!

HashiCorp implemented features to better handle secrets in the state file (not putting them in the file, redacting values everywhere including in logs, education around best practices, etc). They just did not implement the footgun

44/75

In all the interviews and podcasts and YouTube videos that OpenTF did where they shared this example they made 1 thing clear: OpenTF does not understand open-source, OpenTF does not understand Terraform users, and OpenTF has no clue how to build a product.

45/75

Example 2 of OpenTF not understanding anything: alternative interfaces.

Another example OpenTF used to show "look what we could do with Terraform if we can take it out of HashiCorp's evil hands" was alternative interfaces for Terraform.

Get ready, this gets even dumber!

46/75

The idea for alternative interfaces is pretty much "you can only use Terraform through the command-line-interface which is pretty limited. What if you could use it as a library or as an API? That could be awesome"

OpenTF heavily pushed this as something only they could do

47/75

OpenTF heavily pushed this as a next-generation Terraform and as something only they could do in the open open-source and open ecosystem and ooooh, bad HashiCorp did not do this and are clearly a failure and stuff.

HashiCorp did this! OpenTF is hilariously uninformed 🤦‍♂️

48/75

The idea of alternative interfaces for Terraform is super-old.

I was personally in conversations about this in 2017. Yes, more than 5 years ago! A lot of people wanted CloudFormation-like APIs for Terraform so they could use Terraform for SaaS tenant provisioning.

49/75

HashiCorp invested *a lot* in this!

HashiCorp had a lot of conversations with customers about this. They collected requirements, discussed usage scenarios, debated implementations, and discussed roadmaps with A LOT OF stakeholders.

50/75

HashiCorp invested *a lot lot* in this!

HashiCorp designed, reviewed, and shared a lot of ideas and prototypes with the people that wanted this! I saw a bunch of them. Heck, a bunch were even made public: go-tfe, terraform-exec, terraform-k8s, terraform-cloud-operator!

51/75

HashiCorp invested *a lot lot lot* in this!

Since people were sharing their company's roadmap and since HashiCorp was sharing their roadmap, this was all done under NDAs.

Of course you can't see that in the GitHub repository for Terraform! Nobody wants that in public.

52/75

I won't break NDAs here, but the "let's do alternative interfaces for Terraform" widely known conclusion was pretty much "yeah, this is a shit-ton of effort (and probably requires a large re-write) for little benefit, but ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ██".

😅

53/75

Please note that I, Vlad Ionescu, know this. My job is not to be a Terraform expert. Not even remotely! I'm barely a Terraform user. And yet, I know all that!

The so-called Terraform experts behind OpenTF did not know this. Or they did and hid it in their many interviews.

54/75

"Only OpenTF can implement these awesome things and save Terraform, but we have no idea what this is or what was already done for this"

The so-called Terraform experts behind OpenTF are either clueless or manipulative. I don't know what's worse, but both are dangerous.

55/75

To recap the last 55 tweets:
🙅 OpenTF has little-to-no supporters
🚫 OpenTF doesn't understand open-source
❌ OpenTF doesn't understand products
🈲 OpenTF doesn't even understand Terraform
⛔ OpenTF doesn't understand who is involved in Terraform
😤 OpenTF is manipulative

56/75

If, somehow, you're not convinced of the above statements, there are a lot more examples! This thread is ridiculously long tho, so I chose what I believed were the clearest and easiest to explain. But OpenTF proved how dumb they are with a looooot more actions. Repeatedly!

57/75

I saw all this and I was trying to ignore it in hopes it all goes away. Or OpenTF realizes how moronic they are. Or somebody educates them. Or something.

Instead, a bunch of trusted tech leaders jumped on to praise the effort because it was a hot topic and drama == money.

58/75

I won't go on a whole rant here about how much we, the tech community, failed at this.

I won't rant about how we, the trusted leaders that people look up to for informed opinions, just... shat the bed.

59/75

On August 25 OpenTF officially announced they were forking Terraform.

This was wildly reposted and so very popular buuut to anybody actually paying attention, OpenTF yet again proved how utterly disconnected from reality they are. But hey, free marketing for 4 companies!

60/75

https://twitter.com/opentforg/status/1695094626615734420

This thread is ridiculously long already and I don't want to go line-by-line and show how imbecilic they are, but let's look at 1 example.

61/75

OpenTF features will be proposed though a public Request For Comment (RFC) process.

With OpenTF largely ignored by the community and with OpenTF not having HashiCorp's large network of customers to talk to, just how many replies you think they'll get?

62/75

RFCs are the nerd version of "please complete this survey". Somebody posts an idea and then others share their feedback and thoughts.

Unless you get people to complete the surveys, your results will be utterly useless!

63/75

OpenTF yet again fails to understand how companies and how open-source works.

Engineers reply to RFCs because a company pays them to.
Companies mostly reply to RFCs in private after a business partnership is done and after an NDA is signed.

64/75

Don't get me wrong, OpenTF will get replies to their RFCs.

A few. A small and very biased sample made out of their customers + open-source fanatics + eager fans. With OpenTF already having proved they have no idea how to build a product, I fear what the result will be.

65/75

Worse, Spacelift, evn0, and Scalr made it clear they are not companies to partner with.

A SaaS used for infrastructure is a critical partner, not just a vendor! With all their statements, they all made it clear they don't care about their customers.

66/75

Negotiate a license with HashiCorp so customers can keep their businesses running?
Spacelift: PAAAAASSSS. LAME!

Spend at least a few million dollars a year building and maintaining a fork of Terraform and force customers to use this shitty alternative?
Spacelift: YAAAS!

67/75

"Instead of paying HashiCorp licensing fees, Spacelift will spend $1m/year on OpenTF and fuck over all customers by forcing them to adopt OpenTF" is... something.

I certainly hope Spacelift has a different stance in private conversations with their customers.

68/75

As an aside, dear Spacelift: y'all do realize that you're basically telling HashiCorp "it would be more cost efficient for us to pay any licensing fee that's smaller than the cost of 5 full-time engineers ($1mm/yr at the lowest range)", right?

69/75

If I was HashiCorp I'd be evil and literally charge Spacelift $(5FTE - 1$) as a licensing fee. Thank the heavens I am just a dum-dum on the internet!

70/75

Getting back to the point, with the latest announcement OpenTF continues to prove they are not serious.

They don't understand Terraform, they don't understand how Terraform is built, they don't understand the wider ecosystem, and they don't even understand open-source.

71/75

Why would I use OpenTF over Terraform?

There are no reasons to do so! Not today and not tomorrow.

OpenTF can put out all the hopeful and excited statements they want, but they again and again proved they have no idea what they're doing so why would you use OpenTF?

72/75

What should you do?

Keep using Terraform and ignore this bullshit. Re-visit the situation in 3 months and see if you need to change anything. Maybe, by some miracle, OpenTF will get serious and actually build something. Highly un-fucking-likely.

73/75

I have a feeling both Terraform and HashiCorp will end up being better, both as a company and as a product.

Just like MongoDB: they had their licensing drama but they're now both a more comprehensive database and a better company 💟

74/75

HashiCorp may fuck it up, but they're on the right path.

OpenTF might've been an alternative path but they have, time and time again, proved that they cannot be taken seriously.

75/75

OpenTF is disconnected from reality

😡Freakin' dumbass wannabe shitfluencers 💢

I just wanted to share how fast and strongly this spread at CxO levels and how intense the reaction were aaaaaand dumbasses took this and twisted it into "TERrAforM iS DeAD" and "OSS is gONe" 🤦

Let me clarify some things ... 🧵

1/32

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1690039537370824704

If you missed it, there was a follow-up to the original thread.

TL;DR for that: the emotional reaction matters A LOT more than the facts. We're humans and we act as humans, for better or worse. In this case: businesses are scared of OSS now.

2/32

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1690114917297188864

TL;DR: this is another follow-up, with 3 parts:

1️⃣ open-source is fine
2️⃣ HashiCorp products are fine
3️⃣ I just wanted to share not-easily-available reactions and y'all ruined it

The whole point is: calm down, everything is and will continue to be fine!

3/32

First, open-source will be fine!

Yes, really. One hundred percent yes. Affirmative and confirmed and absolutely 100% sure.

Please don't listen to dumbass wannabe shitfluencers that don't care about the accuracy of their content and that get money if they create drama 🙏

4/32

The small open-source is not affected. At all!

Seriously, the "tic-tac-toe but in Rust" that Chad posted on GitHub is not affected. Neither is the shitty startup that is "X but open-source" and that bought 5000 stars on GitHub to show product market fit.

Pls chill!

5/32

The big open-source projects are fine. They'll get some more governance and IP requirements but they already had a bunch of those.

Oh, you did not know those are already well defined and required? Huh, maybe that's a hint that you should shut the fuck up about this topic.

6/32

The other big open-source is the "3 multi-billion companies wanna collaborate and build X together but they need a bunch of assurances and risk mitigation before they allocate tens of millions in engineering effort on X".

They are adults and they are handling this!

7/32

How are they handling it?

From: Fancy Person
To: In-House Counsel / External Law Firm
Subject: HashiCorp BUSL

See <link>. Impact? Mitigations?

Sent from my iPad Pro

8/32

Like seriously. That's it.

They are adults and are handling it like professional adults that are working together (I mean there's still ✨hot business drama✨, but you won't see it and it won't amount to much in the end).

9/32

The other open-source groups (not-yet-big open-source, growing open-source, sneakily funded open-source, etc) will also be fine.

They'll get some contract addendums to protect against this. Lawyers will handle it and it'll pretty much be invisible to everybody else.

10/32

Yes, I am sure of this! Open-source will be fine.

Sure, there will be some changes happening over the next 7-10 year cycle and we might see some bad feedback loops. Only a few open-source community leaders will see that and only a few will be affected.

It'll be fine.

11/32

The second an open-source project becomes successful, ALL those bad things are handled.

The same processes have been happening for forever behind closed doors and they will continue to happen. Y'all will continue not to see the tremendous amount of work done on that side.

12/32

Open-source will be fine and will remain supported.

Heck, this might even lead to more funding for open-source! It will require open-source devs to incorporate and act as a proper adult business and they'll definitely throw a tantrum, but it'll all be good.

13/32

That't it on open-source 'cause I already talked waaay too much about it.

14/32

Secondly, HashiCorp products will be largely fine and your usage of them will not change.

Yes, really.

15/32

HashiCorp has been actually handling this pretty well 👏

They're responding to the avalanche of emails they got, they updated the FAQ, they are scheduling calls and conversations with people, and so on.

Seriously, good job turning this around HashiCorp!

16/32

Terraform will be fine.

Not because HashiCorp will do a good job working with partners (🤣) but because there are no realistic alternatives for the things Terraform is good at — they're all either slightly worse (CloudFormation), a lot worse (CDK, Pulumi), or disastrous.

17/32

HashiCorp's Packer will be fine.

Folks will continue to build AMIs with Packer and their own pipelines. Some people move to alternative solutions and Packer will get less integrations over the next 3-5 years, but it's stable enough that it will all be fine.

18/32

HashiCorp's Vagrant will be fine.

Some folks might migrate to alternative tools, but the numbers will be small. There's a reason there isn't that much focus on Vagrant right now and even enterprise workloads have appealing alternatives.

19/32

HashiCorp's Vault will be fine-ish.

Unless the product starts shining, in time, there's a chance Vault will get less and less integrations and slowly wilt.

Some might migrate to hosted solutions by cloud providers when they realize they're barely using Vault's power.

20/32

HashiCorp's Consul will be in some trouble.

Unless the product start shining, in time, people will migrate to higher-level hosted offerings as Consul's advantages will slowly disappear.

There's no immediate impact for most people, so long live Consul Community Version!

21/32

HashiCorp's Nomad get even more woes.

Nomad has some really nice concepts, but it was drifting and now it's getting even more troubles. We'll have to see how HashiCorp handles this 👀

Impact won't be visible for a while and the Community Version will be fine either way.

22/32

HashiCorp's Waypoint does not matter.

It's barely a proof-of-concept with few resources allocated to it. Nobody really cares about it. The community won't be eager to integrate with Waypoint so it'll probably disappear.

23/32

HashiCorp's Boundary... I have no idea.

I genuinely have no idea about this one. It's somewhat new and I did not really see it used. Maybe it'll become a major focus and grow a lot and be amazing? 🤷

24/32

HashiCorp can still fuck this up though😅

Really bad thing they could do: demand excessive license fees from their ex-community now turned competitors. It's fine-ish if HashiCorp extracts some value, it's devastating if the amount is excessive.

I hope that won't happen🤞

25/32

That's it on HashiCorp 'cause I talked waaay to much about them.

Terraform will be fine, everybody else will be fine-ish, and newer products will have a harder time growing. Let's not pretend that HashiCorp did not already have issues before this 😉

26/32

Lastly, I wrote the initial thread because it was interesting and largely unaccessible 🤷

Unless you're privileged, you don't get to see how executives react to things like these. To see and discuss reactions with multiple business leaders... you've gotta be really lucky!

27/32

That was it!

I saw interesting and strong reactions that might impact tech in the coming 5-7 years and, because that wasn't part of the conversation, I thought I should share it.

28/32

I shared how people reacted to this.

❗ react != act ❗

I did not share my thoughts. I did not share my opinions. I did not review anything.
I did not share solutions. I did not share next steps. I did not share definitive concussions. Those are still being worked on!

29/32

I still am not sharing most of that!

Partly because that's actual work product, partly because it would be risky, partly because that would require a bunch of writing and background, partly because it would open me up to harassment, and partly because fuck you pay me.

30/32

Plus, tech has more ✨drama✨ than the original Gossip Girl and that's all shared in confidence and under NDAs.

Seriously, there are so many layers of discussions and plans and drama and people and aaah. And we'll never know most of it.

Aside: HashiCorp = Jenny Humphrey?

31/32

So yeah, please don't listen to any dumbass with 10k followers on whatever platform you're on. And please tell them to calm down.

HashiCorp is fine! We're fine! Tech is fine! Pls chill!

Change is normal and this is just the natural evolution of a young and hot industry.

32/32

Follow-up #2 to HashiCorp's license changes and ripple effects

The impact from this is way wider than initially thought — this is sending ripples across the whole tech sector!

A thread that may or may not be a bit paranoid / anxiety-powered 🧵

1/22

https://twitter.com/HashiCorp/status/1689733106813562880

TL;DR: this was initially perceived as a supply chain attack. It's (debatably) not that, but the concerns it created will persist. I think we'll see some interesting consolidation and some fundamental architectural changes in the next cycle. I could be wrong tho 🤷

2/22

Proving yet again they are terrible at actual business, HashiCorp posted the blog post announcing the license change, they posted a FAQ, and then they went silent.

Impact and restrictions are still not clear. Folks using any HashiCorp OSS legitimately panicked.

3/22

Panic like "Shit, we have a team that offers hosted Vault to internal teams and business groups. They can't do that anymore because the new license doesn't allow for it. Maybe? Maybe it's allowed? Fuck, migrating off Vault is a multi-year effort, how will we survive?!"

4/22

Panic like "Fuck, all our infrastructure is built and managed using Terraform. Because HashiCorp is terrible at building actual products we use Spacelift. Can we not use that anymore? Are they impacted? Does this mean we can't do any infrastructure changes anymore?"

5/22

Panic like "Damn, we were forced to fork Terraform due to upstream not wanting or not having resources to review changes that were critical to us. We can freeze the code but now we have to maintain a full project? Is that even legal? Migrating to another IaC would kill us"

6/22

Panic like "Holy anus, we run global jobs for customers and we use Nomad as an orchestrator. That's technically also offered as a managed service by HashiCorp so we now have to pay them a ransom? How much is it and how does it compare with the cots of migrating to k8s?"

7/22

Panic like "Bugger, the US branch of our company builds AMIs using an internal Packer pipeline that's built and maintained by the EU branch. The branches invoice each other. We built and contributed like 50 massive features and now we have to pay HashiCorp to run Packer?!"

8/22

Folks legitimately considered opening up incidents.

Folks legitimately brought in lawyers who were just as confused.

Folks legitimately don't know if they'll have to ruin their whole roadmap because they'll now have to work on eliminating any and all HashiCorp products.

9/22

Sure, there were other license changes in the past — Mongo, Elastic — but those were more focused.

Then Docker changed its license and pricing. That was shocking and impactful (with like a half-year grace period) but it was written off by most as a one-time-weirdness.

10/22

Now HashiCorp is joining the trend and changing licenses in the worst way possible.

This affects multiple highly-popular and critical projects.
This is done with immediate impact, without any advance notice or grace period.
This is somewhat ransom-y.

This is different.

11/22

I won't talk about HashiCorp's business failures here. I won't talk about open-source failures and sustainability. I won't talk about revenue models here.

I won't talk about many things because there are people wiser than me covering that!

12/22

What I will talk about is the fact that this is now officially a trend that can't be ignored: any single-vendor open-source dependency can now suddenly disappear.

There's now a new tech ecosystem with new rules. Businesses have to adapt to this new reality.

13/22

A lot of tech execs are looking at their dependencies now. A lot of architects are terrified of the implications and thinking about how this will impact both existing systems and new systems. A lot of product, sales, and marketing people are 🤯.

The future got blown up.

14/22

Considering the rise of ████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ █████, the ███████ █████████████ ████ █████████, and the disappearance of easy VC money... I think we'll see some consolidation and light feudalism.

15/22

I think this is the last drop in the sustainable software drama. I think this a view into how complex tech supply chains are.
I think we'll soon have some very different development approaches and some wildly divergent architectures.

But I don't wanna expand on those here

16/22

I think that any open-source project that's 1) not under an independent foundation and 2) that's not supported by multiple vendors will be seen as a huge risk.

Folks will be very reluctant to use any such projects and that will create some scary dynamics.

17/22

This is already a concern for big corps; see for example AWS' Karpenter and how Azure really wants to implement that too but they can't implement it until it's out of AWS and into the neutral CNCF.

Now *everybody* will care about this!

18/22

We all joked that every single startup and every single OSS project wants to donate itself to CNCF, but that is CNCF's role: to be a neutral foundation that enables different companies to collaborate on open-source projects.

That's a heck of a lot more critical now!

19/22

"Why use open-source project X from company Y if in 2 years they'll decide to blackmail us into paying them 💰?"

"Why allocate dev time for work on open-source project X when all that effort will be stolen by company Y since they own X?"

... and so on.

20/22

It's fuzzy, but I think we'll see a bunch of changes.

Some will be good, like more paying vendors for support guarantees.
Some will be bad, like "AWS X sucks, but at least they won't pull the rug from under me so I'll use that and not even consider other vendors".

21/22

I didn't expect this and I certainly did not expect this to ripple so much throughout the whole tech ecosystem.

22/22

HashiCorp's license changes and ripple effects

Terraform is a car and CloudFormation is a delivery van.

After a while, techies got _passionate_ and came out with CDK and Pulumi which are pretty much a Hummer H2.

@thesysteminit: leave the US car-focused hellscape, move Amsterdam/Oulu, and get an electric bike. Pure bliss!

https://twitter.com/adamhjk/status/1671536868582912001

Of course, the "DevOps-are-real-devs-I-swear-here-is-another-100k-of-Golang-to-prove-it" infrastructure engineers will be very reluctant and dismissive of this.

I get it, trauma is hard to get over *hugs*

That said, trust me and try SI. It's amazing!

https://twitter.com/iamvlaaaaaaad/status/1670719831186845701

Just like folks in Oulu still use cars (either owned or rented) infra people will continue to use Terraform and CloudFormation.

But you know, for like 90% of your day-to-day a bike is more than enough — you're not moving furniture 5 times a day.

SI makes that 90% blissful!

And, for the record, SI still has a bunch of code!

It's just hidden away and only there when you legitimately need it — it's not thrown in your face and it's not made a mandatory requirement.

And oh boy, is it powerful. It makes all other IaC look like horses instead of cars 🤯

I've been privileged enough to get both to try out SI early and to chat to the team building SI.

Let me tell you, they're doing everything right. 100% EVERYTHING PERFECT. Seriously. Even the crankiest version of me had 0 things to complain about.

For every single potential worry and concern I had, the SI team already had a top-notch action plan drawn up: what the issues are, how to tackle the issues, how to improve the experience around the issue, how to fix the issues, and how to actually build a product around it all.

Sure, they have all the time to fuck this up, but I don't think they will.

They're focused. They're skilled as heck. They're not doing any dirty and annoying growth hacks. They're not compromising. They're not self-sabotaging. They're fully and completely on top of this❣️

Also, I have to brag 😎

Influencer achievements unlocked:
✅ Get quoted in a press release
✅ Get quoted alongside @redmonk

(full disclosure: SI did not pay me. They did send me some swag and I actually had to pay evil import taxes for that so I guess my balance is negative)

Anyway, I am excited as heck about System Initiative and y'all need to put this at the top of your "things to keep an eye on and try" list.

I think they'll start a new era for DevOps and I can't wait to use this 🚀

Private beta and maybe the future: System Initiative

AWS: releases a 4-seat SUV.

Tech thought leaders:
1️⃣ "Dammit AWS, this is too big for the 1 me to use to cross the street. Followers, this is shit, do not use!"
2️⃣ "Dammit AWS, this does not have the 56 seats I need to transport people. Audience, this is shit, do not use!"

🤦

AWS: releases a fun convertible car, good mileage, $50k price, super-comfortable.

Shitfluencers: dammit AWS, the trunk of this is so small. How can I carry 5 tons of fertilizer with this!?! Dear followers, this is a shit service, do not use.

🙄

AWS: releases high-performance sports car, 0-to-100 in 0.5s, max speed of 800km/h, street-legal, costing around $200k full-option.

Shitfluencers: dammit AWS, how can I use this to take kids to school?! It's too expensive! Followers, AWS is shitty and out of touch!

😒

AWS: releases an electric pickup truck that can tow up to 30000lbs, 5000 miles range, $150k all-in price.

Shitfluencers: dammit AWS, this is so hard to use on the small streets of Paris. Horrible turning radius! Dear people trying to learn from me, this is shit, do not use.

🙃

AWS: releases a cargo plane that's 90% cheaper.

Shitfluencers: dammit AWS, why can't I get this straight out of the factory painted back and with diamond encrusted on the wings?! Followers, AWS is outdated and you should build your own planes — here's my guide on that.

😑

AWS: releases a nice city e-bike, with integrated pants shield, comfortable seat, angel-like suspension.

Shitfluencers: dammit AWS, I can't even reach 200km/h with this. Even a Ford is faster than this!?! Dear people that look at me for guidance, this is shit, do not use.

😬


Reaction to AWS releasing something

After watching 289 talks, I can now confidently share my re:Invent 2022 recap 🕵️‍♂️

Verdict: I am whelmed. Not underwhelmed or overwhelmed, just whelmed.

Since there were a bunch of other "unboxing" recaps already, here's a thread with an ✨actionable✨ recap.

Beware #1: I am a dum-dum working with partial information here. There's a fair chance this thread will have at least a couple mistakes or bad takes. Always hedge your bets!

Beware #2: I am only *only* talking about re:Invent launches. No pre-invent releases!

TL;DR:

1️⃣ AWS CxOs keeps ostrich-ing it — hiding their head in a 💰 instead of going through a desperately-needed corporate crisis

2️⃣ the release train keeps chugging along: we got some amazing low-level releases, some nice middle-level ones, and some high-level disappointments

🚀 Do you run intense Java Lambdas?

If yes, adopt Lambda SnapStart right now!
If not, ignore this as yet another checkbox in the Lambda UI and as yet another nail in the FaaS coffin.

TL;DR: start your Intel Java11 Lambdas from a snapshot, reducing cold start time by up to 90%

🚀 Do you have a custom Lambda that modifies EventBridge messages?

If yes, consider dropping it and moving to EventBridge Pipes.

TL;DR: for a subset of EventBridge sources and destinations, filter & transform the messages

🚀 Are you running any Apache Spark workloads?

If yes, see if you can migrate any to Amazon Athena for Apache Spark.

TL;DR: serverless Spark!

👀 Keep an eye on: AWS Verified Access

TL;DR: let's get rid of VPNs with zero-trust!

It's in preview now so there's not much to do, but looks great. This will also replace a bunch of ALB+OIDC/Congito+SSO setups.

👀 Keep an eye on: Amazon OpenSearch Serverless

Can't move to Athena/ChaosSearch? Chaotic load? Over-provisioning and over-paying OR under-provisioning and getting throttled? This'll save you!

It's in preview now, but I'd try to get in if you're a fit.

👀 Keep an eye on: VPC Lattice

TL;DR: fancy networking mesh / alternative to VPC peering and Transit Gateways.

It's in preview, so not much to do, but VPC Lattice and EFA/ENA Express+SRD are finally moving networking from "datacenter light" to "cloud native"!

Sidenote: AWS has been gradually replacing* all the base cloud building blocks

EC2 was replaced by Fargate.
S3 was replaced by itself. Seriously, S3 today and S3 in 2010 are worlds apart.
It looks like it's finally the VPC's turn ❤️

*: yeah yeah, not full replacements, sush!

👀 Keep an eye on: ECS Service Connect

TL;DR: get rid of internal ALBs with this kinda service-discovery / managed-meshy thing.

It's single-account for now, so meh. Keep an eye on how this evolves and how it integrates with VPC Lattice 😉

👀 Keep an eye on: Amazon Verified Permissions

Tl;DR: permission management and authorization. Check out the main competition, @osoHQ to easily understand this.

It's in preview, but looks good. It'll eliminate a lot of boring, differentiated, and potentially dangerous work.

🚫 Ignore and add to your block list: Amazon CodeCatalyst

TL;DR: GitHub + GitHub Issues + GitHub Actions + templates + GitHub Codespaces

It's in preview, but I've seen all I needed to see.

I want to keep this thread positive so I'll leave it at that and limit myself to one 🚫.

🕹️ Got some free time this weekend? Bored in the office during the holidays?

Try out AWS Application Composer!

TL;DR: what if you could draw your infrastructure and get CloudFormation out? With helpful assistance!

It's in preview, but it's a pretty fun experience 👏

And that's it!

The other announcements were specific, so I won't cover them here. I love 800Gbps instances and the Inf2 chip, but I doubt many of y'all care about that. Also shoutout to RDS and Glue cause they had some awesome launches!

Want more? 👇

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/top-announcements-of-aws-reinvent-2022/

What about Kubernetes?

There were no major releases this re:Invent. That's great and fills me with hope 💟 Kubernetes and EKS both have some really rough edges and I hope this means AWS is focused on those instead of flashy announcements.

Plus, KubeCon happened 1 month ago 😉

In case you're bored, the next bunch of tweets will have interesting talks to check out. Otherwise, thank you for reading and goodbye 👋

Like and subscribe?

Having watched 289 talks, I can tell you that some are fantastic, some are ok, and some are definitely malpractice.

I can't list all the fantastic talks here, but I'll share a small subset of them. Since a bunch of other people already shared lists, I'll focus on hidden gems!

"Quantum applications and taking POCs to production (QTC202)"

I love how AWS covered quantum at re:Invent 😍

"Look, it's new and not ready for 99% of the things out there, but let's empower people to experiment and let's see how this might be useful"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jWisVz7twU

"SaaS architecture patterns: From concept to implementation (SAS305-R)"

As always, AWS SaaS Factory has awesome talks 💗 This is just one talk from them, you really should find all the others! Seriously, mandatory viewing for SaaS/multi-tenant systems!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlAXldBt7I0

"AWS Impact Accelerator: Being the megaphone (DEI207)"

Yes AWS, please, more of this! 👏

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j08R9D-Xnjw

"Accelerate GraphQL API app development & collaboration w/AWS AppSync (FWM316)"

AppSync is getting awesome and this is a perfect overview 💯 GraphQL is finally past its painful exercise / FAANG cosplay / great demo fails in prod era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyzNM9KIJSU

"A dynamic opportunity: Understand AWS China and grow your business (ENT230)"

Ever wondered about AWS China? Here you go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUKWjJ83ZI0

"Deliver great experiences with QUIC on Amazon CloudFront (NET401)"

A quick history and fascinating deep dive into the *why* and *how* of HTTP3 🌐

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFR7z_vce20

"How Amazon uses better metrics for improved website performance (AMZ302)"

Hihihihi, corporate breakdown due to bad metrics :lolsob: Executives setting goals and roadmaps is not as easy as people think!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uaaCiyJCFA

"Water stewardship and renewable energy at scale (SUS211)"

Yeah, this is a bit self-indulgent but it shows how complex building a datacenter is. Sure, the cloud is just another datacenter. Colocated racks are the same. Suuuuure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfx0RmhjsOI

"Security alchemy: How AWS uses math to prove security (SEC310)"

Yaaas, automated reasoning, math, and one the best slide titles ever: "From muggle to math" 🧙

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlgsOKpNDw4

"Emotional intelligence can supercharge innovation (INO203)"

To build awesome stuff you first need to be a good human! This talks shares some great first steps 🚣

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRqI7GFaHwI

"Supporting extensibility in SaaS environments (SAS302)"

No you don't need Web Assembly to offer extensibility in your SaaS app. Counter-example from Figma: https://www.figma.com/blog/how-we-built-the-figma-plugin-system/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzRrEWzqD0Y

"Cloud strategies for equity valuation and investor readiness (STP206-R)"

This is a panel that techies should definitely watch to understand that "ooh, that's why we did not do that perfect snowflake then". Seriously, build we build tech *for* business!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXNXVy8dZ0g