This article records CloudHero’s response to HashiCorp’s August 2023 licensing change. Preserve that date when interpreting the original position. For a current decision, identify the exact product, release, license and intended use; one statement about Terraform does not establish the terms for every HashiCorp product or version.

What did the statement cover?

The statement addressed CloudHero’s consulting work at the time: assisting customers with infrastructure in their own environments. It did not describe every possible hosted product or establish rights for future offerings.

How should a current customer check applicability?

Record the product release, applicable license, additional use grant and actual service being supplied. Read HashiCorp’s current licensing FAQ alongside those terms. Escalate an uncertain interpretation to the organization’s licensing owner before changing an offering or treating this historical assurance as current approval.

Read CloudHero’s original August 2023 statement

What is The Impact on CloudHero and Our Customers

To our valued CloudHero community and customers,

We are aware of the recent licensing changes announced by HashiCorp, transitioning from the Mozilla Public License v2.0 (MPL 2.0) to the Business Source License (BSL, or BUSL) v1.1 for their future product releases. We understand that changes like these can raise questions and concerns, and we want to address how this impacts CloudHero and our esteemed clientele.

CloudHero’s Position

At CloudHero, our primary goal has always been to provide top-tier DevOps professional services, ensuring our customers can deploy and manage their infrastructure seamlessly. We utilize tools like Terraform to assist our customers in deploying infrastructure in their name. Based on our understanding of HashiCorp’s new BSL license, our current mode of operation remains compliant. We are not embedding or hosting HashiCorp products in a manner that competes with HashiCorp’s offerings. Instead, we continue to work alongside our customers, using these tools to enhance their infrastructure deployment experience.

To further clarify, HashiCorp has stated:

“I’m a consultant that helps my customers run their infrastructure using HashiCorp tooling. Does HashiCorp consider me a competitor? All non-production use of BSL licensed HashiCorp products is permitted. Assisting a customer with their own use of BSL licensed HashiCorp products for their production environment is also permitted. Embedding or hosting BSL licensed HashiCorp products in an offering to be made available to multiple customers that is competitive with HashiCorp products is not permitted.”

— HashiCorp

Impact on Our Customers

For our customers, this means business as usual. Our services, methodologies, and the quality of delivery remain unchanged. You can continue to rely on CloudHero for your infrastructure needs, and we assure you that our practices align with the licensing requirements set by HashiCorp.

Moving Forward

We value transparency and open communication. We actively monitor the situation and will inform our customers of further developments that might affect our services. We also encourage any of our customers or partners with concerns or questions to contact us directly. Your peace of mind is paramount to us.

Summary

CloudHero has taken note of HashiCorp’s transition from the Mozilla Public License v2.0 to the Business Source License v1.1. Our primary goal remains to offer top-tier DevOps services, using tools like Terraform to aid our customers. Our operations align with the new BSL license, ensuring we remain compliant. HashiCorp’s clarification confirms that our mode of assisting customers with their infrastructure needs is permitted under the new licensing terms.

Conclusion

The recent licensing changes by HashiCorp have brought about questions and concerns in the DevOps community. At CloudHero, we prioritize transparency and open communication. We assure our customers that our services remain unaffected and in compliance with the new licensing requirements. Our commitment to excellence and fostering trust remains unwavering, and we are here to support and guide our community through these industry shifts. We value our partnership with each of our customers and thank you for your continued trust in CloudHero.

Warm regards,

The CloudHero Team

Sources and further reading