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Chef Liberated

Chef Goes All-In on Open Source

  • DevOps Chat: Chef Goes All-In on Open Source

    In front of next month’s ChefConf in Seattle, Chef has announced a major refinement to its business model. Affirming and clarifying its commitment to open source business models, Chef will now and in the future release all of its software as open source.

LWN and original from Chef

  • Chef becomes 100% free software

    Chef, the purveyor of a popular configuration-management system, has announced a move away from the open-core business model and the open-sourcing of all of its software.

  • Introducing the New Chef: 100% Open, Always

    Today, Chef is announcing meaningful changes to the way that we build and distribute our software. Chef has always believed in the power of open source. This philosophy is core to the way that we think about software innovation. There is no better way to build software than in the open in partnership with individuals and companies who use our stack in the real world. And for enterprises and other organizations facing complex challenges, Chef backs up our software by building and supporting distributions for our projects with the resources necessary for these organizations to succeed.

    Going forward, we are doubling down on our commitment to OSS development as we extend our support for the needs of enterprise-class transformation. Starting today, we will expand the scope of our open source licensing to include 100% of our software under the Apache 2.0 license (consistent with our existing Chef Infra, Chef InSpec, and Chef Habitat license terms) without any restrictions on the use, distribution or monetization of our source code as long as our trademark policy is respected. We welcome anyone to use and extend our software for any purpose in alignment with the four essential freedoms of Free Software.

Chef-paid 'analysi' comments

  • Chef’s Different Recipe

    Over the course of the past three plus years, the market has seen a growing number of commercial open source organizations – with encouragement from some investors – drifting away from traditional open source licensing and norms. While there have been significant differences in the precise mechanics of their respective approaches, the common thread between the likes of Confluent, Elastic, MongoDB, Redis Labs and TimeScale has been their willingness to violate open source norms long considered sacrosanct.

    Contrary to internet opinions, however, little if any of this was done with malicious intent, or absent due consideration for the grave implications of the various moves. In the majority of cases, the difficult decisions were made reluctantly, under duress. Whether that duress was real or more theoretical in nature is a matter of some debate, but there can be no doubt that the companies involved embarked on these courses because they felt they had to, not because they particularly wanted to.

    There have been many contributing factors to this drift away from open source, including the intrinsic problems of compelling payment for assets otherwise available for free, but by far the biggest driver has been the once cold war that recently escalated into a full scale hot war between cloud vendors and commercial open source providers. The relationships between these archetypes is fraught, and has evolved from relatively benign indifference on the part of open source providers to existential, unmanageable dread.

By Sean Michael Kerner

  • Chef Opens Up DevOps Platform With Enterprise Automation Stack

    Chef has been at the forefront of the DevOps movement with its namesake open-source Chef project. Not all of Chef's platforms, however, have been open-source, with some available under commercial proprietary licenses.

    On April 2, Chef announced a major shift in its company alignment, making all of its products available under the Apache 2.0 open-source license and revealing a new supported platform called the Enterprise Automation Stack. The move to being 100 percent open-source is an effort to provide more transparency and encourage broader collaboration. Rather than moving the projects to an independent, third-party open-source foundation and governance model, however, Chef will continue to lead and operate the projects.

    "When looking at foundations and the shape of open-source, a big issue is deciding who controls and builds the upstream asset. As soon as you put software into a foundation, the foundation controls the asset," Adam Jacob, co-founder and CTO of Chef, told eWEEK. "One of the things that we're doing is aligning our own commercial interests with our interest in being the upstream that provides the project."

Goodbye Open Core — Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

  • Goodbye Open Core — Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

    This morning, Chef Software announced that it will be releasing 100% of its software as Open Source, under the Apache License. Going forward, all of its product development will be done in the open, with the community, and released as Open Source Software. Chef is done with being Open Core, and is now a Free Software Product company. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
    As a Co-Founder of Chef, a board member, and a community member, I couldn’t be more thrilled. For me, it eliminates the longest-running source of friction and frustration from my time at Chef. On the one hand, we have a community that cares about the software, and about each other, where we develop the software in concert with our users and customers. On the other, we produced a proprietary software stack, which we use to make money. Deciding what’s in, and what’s out, or where to focus, was the hardest part of the job at Chef. I’m stoked nobody has to do it anymore. I’m stoked we can have the entire company participating in the open source community, rather than burning out a few dedicated heroes. I’m stoked we no longer have to justify the value of what we do in terms of what we hold back from collaborating with people on.
    As an insider, I got to witness first-hand the boldness and deep thought put in to this transition by the team at Chef. Our incredible CEO, Barry Crist; Corey Scobie, the SVP of Product and Technology; Brian Goldfarb, CMO; Katie Long, our VP of Legal; and so many others. Thank you.

Yet more coverage

Chef Goes All Open Source

  • Chef Goes All Open Source

    The Chef automation tool, a popular solution for DevOps IT management scenarios, has announced that it will be become a 100% open source platform. In the past, the basic Chef application was available in open source form, but the company also provided several enhancements and add-on tools with proprietary licenses. Rather than building proprietary tools around an open source core, Chef will now open source all of its software under an Apache 2.0 license.

    According to Chef CEO Barry Crist, “Over the years we have experimented with and learned from a variety of different open source, community, and commercial models, in search of the right balance. We believe that this change, and the way we have made it, best aligns the objectives of our communities with our own business objectives. Now we can focus all of our investment and energy on building the best possible products in the best possible way for our community without having to choose between what is “proprietary” and what is “in the commons.”

Configuration Management Tool Chef Announces to go 100% OSS

  • Configuration Management Tool Chef Announces to go 100% Open Source

    You are here: Home / News / Configuration Management Tool Chef Announces to go 100% Open Source
    Configuration Management Tool Chef Announces to go 100% Open Source
    Last updated April 5, 2019 By Ankush Das 2 Comments
    In case you did not know, among the most popular automation software services, Chef is one of the best out there.

    Recently, it announced some new changes to its business model and the software. While we know that everyone here believes in the power of open source – and Chef supports that idea too. So, now they have decided to go 100% open source.

    It will included all of their software under the Apache 2.0 license. You can use, modify, distribute and monetize their source code as long as you respect the trademark policy.

    In addition to this, they’ve also introduced a new service for enterprises, we’ll take a look at that as you read on.

"Chef Plates All Software as Open Source"

  • Chef Plates All Software as Open Source

    The IT automation and dev ops software vendors is embracing the open source model to clarify its product line and enhance its value proposition.

  • Chef says it’s going 100% open source, forks optional…

    Chef has lifted a page from Red Hat’s recipe book, and is making all of its software 100 per cent open source, under the Apache 2 license.

    But if you’re planning to use the automation and configuration specialist’s software in production, you’re still going to be expected to cough up for a subscription.

    Chef CEO Barry Crist said in a blog post today that the company “has always believed in the power of open source”.

  • Leading DevOps program Chef goes all in with open source [Ed: CBS repeats Microsoft talking points: "Some companies are wriggling out of open-source to maximize their profits." And proprietary software companies never do?]

    Some companies are wriggling out of open-source to maximize their profits.

  • “Chef” DevOps leading program goes all-in on open source

    Chef, one of the leading DevOps companies announced from here on out it would be developing all of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license and revealing a new supported platform called the Enterprise Automation Stack.

Some belated coverage

  • Chef open sources 100% under Apache 2.0 license

    “Chef Enterprise Automation Stack lets teams establish and maintain a consistent path to production for any application, in order to increase velocity and improve efficiency, so deployment and updates of mission-critical software become easier, move faster and work flawlessly.”

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