search

opentofu / opentofu

OpenTofu lets you declaratively manage your cloud infrastructure.
https://opentofu.org
Mozilla Public License 2.0
22.4k stars 852 forks source link

New name for the OpenTF project #296

Closed roni-frantchi closed 11 months ago

roni-frantchi commented 1 year ago

This is an issue that's meant to be a place where we can consolidate some of the discussions around several issues raised regarding the name of the project/binary.
Namely https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/issues/273 https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/issues/276 https://github.com/opentffoundation/opentf/issues/287 .
I'll be closing these issues soon for the sake of having one place to discuss the matter.

Naming can be, unfortunately, a little tricky - specifically around Hashicorp trademarks.
Our legal team is currently going through the process of clearing some alternatives if needs be, as OpenTF might not be one we will be able to keep.

miend commented 12 months ago

A draft is the plan you create to allow skilled workers to turn architectural ideas into reality. This is also a verb ("I will draft a plan"), is short and simple, and fits well with the purpose of an IaC tool. As a bonus, it retains the familiar f and t.

spitzzz commented 12 months ago

turf

jarv commented 11 months ago

blueprint could be a nice replacement. It's longer than some of the other suggestions but is no longer thanterraform. blueprint plan and blueprint apply have a nice sound to them. I see it is also being used in a Terraform context here https://cloud.google.com/docs/terraform/blueprints/terraform-blueprints

tracphil commented 11 months ago

tint

Tint Is Not Terraform

pauldraper commented 11 months ago

And then you could run

tint taint <target>

;)

marcinwyszynski commented 11 months ago

Or "Tint Is New Terraform" :)

dvaumoron commented 11 months ago

Seeing @Magnitus- and @skyzyx answers, i suggest Declade or Declacode (as "declarative code" contraction), moreover Declade looking like decade seems funny ("Declade was awaited for decades" could be a punchline). Last but not least, Declade seem better for search than existing things like Tofu (already pointed by @emocharnik).

Suggestion : Declade

marziply commented 11 months ago

Is it possible to post a time based poll here? Something in the realm of the top most voted suggestion in a given week?

iapicca commented 11 months ago

Is it possible to post a time based poll here? Something in the realm of the top most voted suggestion in a given week?

yeah @marziply is right, so hard to even see what are the options! maybe keeping this issue for proposing the options to add to the poll and a new issue with the poll and comments disabled

theherk commented 11 months ago

I don't understand how that is a benefit over the current discussion. The proposals are here, and have countable reactions. The don't seem difficult to find, though if they are I suppose @roni-frantchi could keep the opening comment up-to-date with running tallies or links to the proposal comments. Otherwise, it seems just to undercut the community participation that has taken place already.

Here are the proposal comments:

I will also point out, accepting this is based partly on personal preference, that tofu's total support here is unparalleled with nearly 200 total votes including those voicing support after the proposition.

samuel-phan commented 11 months ago

My suggestions:

neuroblast

TF is the tool that will create new infra everywhere (dev, qa, prod in different regions), so it's like the neuro-central brain that will control all the created infra instances.

neuromorph

Same idea of neuro-central brain, morphing to have same infra components in different accounts/regions. Reminds me the Zergs in Starcraft somehow 😅

neuromutate

I downvoted transmorph because I don't want to have any confusion with transgenders somehow.

pauldraper commented 11 months ago

tofu's total support here is unparalleled with nearly 200 total votes

To be fair, I don't think many scroll through dozens of comments to find tint or whatever else.

spitzzz commented 11 months ago

tofu's total support here is unparalleled with nearly 200 total votes

To be fair, I don't think many scroll through dozens of comments to find tint or whatever else.

I agree, also - the collective list also skipped a at least one suggestion, conveniently the one I suggested lol.

theherk commented 11 months ago

I agree, also - the collective list also skipped a at least one suggestion, conveniently the one I suggested lol.

Sorry @spitzzz. I had also left out blueprint from @jarv. I assure you it wasn't a convenient omission, but sign of my ineptitude via copypasta oversight. I'll try to keep the list up-to-date.

spitzzz commented 11 months ago

Oh I was just kidding around of course! I know it wasn't intentional so no worries!

pdecat commented 11 months ago

Is "tf" actually a trademark of the legacy company? I've found matches in other fields by other companies, but not computing and the likes.

theherk commented 11 months ago

Is "tf" actually a trademark of the legacy company? I've found matches in other fields by other companies, but not computing and the likes.

Seems very unlikely that any trademark issuing bodies would issue one for two letters, especially when it is a file extension that is protected by an open source license. I don't think that is a concern.

skyzyx commented 11 months ago

Along the lines of tofu, but is still easy to say/type:

Remember: We engineers don't like to type. I'm hesitant to support a name that is either too long, too hard to remember to spell, or doesn't have a good/short acronym. Even typing terr[tab] resulted into too many matches, and I'd have to type more letters to filter further. tf is/was a short alias.

More thoughts:

When folks decided to try to develop a well-defined specification for Markdown, they first called the project Standard Markdown (kind of like OpenTF). They went back and forth with John Gruber (creator of Markdown), and settled on the non-trademark-infringing Commonmark.

It was just so obvious that we'd call it that, and it provided a clarity about its purpose. The name was perfect.

Perhaps instead of leaning into the TF part, we lean into the fact that this project is trying to be more forward-looking and community-facing. Our version of the Common in Commonmark. The binary is cmark.

“If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men into teams and send them to the forest to cut wood. Instead, teach them to long for the vast and endless sea.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Also, one of the core tenets of UX is "clarity over cleverness".

From Signal v Noise, by Jason Fried:

I just noticed Apple changed the logout feature in the MobileMe app UI. It used to be a power button icon. Now it just says “logout.” Another triumph of clarity over cleverness.

From Ron White, a standup comedian:

This guy walks over to the tree, he scratches the bark with his thumb, walks back over to me, and he says this, and I quote:

“The core of this tree is still alive.”

I said, “Let me tell you what I'm looking for in a f***in‘ tree. I'm looking for a tree that you can tell is alive even if you don't know shit about trees.”

Not knocking @samuel-phan, @dvaumoron, or any of the other suggestions (they were just the most recent ones I read), but looking through the UX lens, I'm skeptical that Declade or Neuromutate drive clarity.

IMO, we'll know it when we say it/read it/write it, and it's just obvious that we'd call it that. Like touch interfaces on mobile phones. I don't think we've found it yet.

roni-frantchi commented 11 months ago

Hey! Wanted to thank everyone for all the great ideas, comments, suggestions and thoughts ❤️.

Naming's always hard. Infinite number of options and so many interesting angles and opinions.

Out of your many suggestions and reactions, Tofu seemed to have pulled well ahead as a crowd favorite.

We've taken the core of it and together, ran it through legal and other functions with the help of our friends and colleagues at the Linux Foundation.

Today, we are excited to officially launch a rebrand of this project as OpenTofu under the Linux Foundation!

The binary, commands and code will all just say tofu.

Once again, thank you everyone for weighing in here, and first hand helping us choosing the name for this project.

Looking forward to more of this amazing community helping to steer this project well ahead, with much love ❤️

6509ca1be28653c8ebada697_OpenTofu Logo Animation

unacceptable commented 11 months ago

Hey team! 👋

Just my two cents: tofu might be a hard to gain traction in the existing community. It might help sell the name if tofu was an acronym. I was thinking something like the following:

What is everyone else's thoughts?

dvaumoron commented 11 months ago

Hi @unacceptable,

An acronym would be fun, but linking to Terraform which is an Hashicorp owned trademarks could lead to legal problem as stated by @roni-frantchi (https://github.com/opentofu/opentofu/issues/296#issue-1883673349)

My try would be a recursive one inspired by your first proposal : Tofu Open and Free for Users

unacceptable commented 11 months ago

I love a good recursive acronym! I am a fan of "Tofu Open and Free for Users".

jwhy89 commented 11 months ago

I'm glad we didn't let the entire internet decide! https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html

CleanShot 2023-09-20 at 12 34 10@2x
astrolemonade commented 11 months ago

I think Open Tofu is a terrible name. Why? Tofu does not exists so it cannot be a version of it that is Open(me thinks). Just Tofu would have been better than Open Tofu!

Frikki commented 11 months ago

Do one think less of Linux because its name is derived from Unix?

Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux" but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.

In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".

"Just for fun : the story of an accidental revolutionary" by Torvalds, Linus; Diamond, David.

@pauldraper

stephenlb commented 11 months ago

Looking forward to using the tofu command 🚀

mariano-daniel commented 11 months ago

OpenTofu it is then! <3

edomaur commented 11 months ago

OpenTofu then :-)

I forgot to submit my suggestions which were : Planetary, Factory (with and ft cli tool) and Watchmaker

dotdc commented 11 months ago

alias tf="tofu" will save us!

rawtaz commented 11 months ago

I must say.. The new name, OpenTofu (or anything with Tofu, for that matter), is absurdly bad. In the context of this project, it is nothing short of silly, childish, and what not (it basically went from being the most prominent infrastructure provisioning to something that comes across as nothing but a toy and something you would never consider in actual infrastructure work). I cannot even begin to fathom how anyone, being even the slightest serious, would ever come up with such a name. It's bad beyond words. I am not saying this with the intent to be disrespectful towards anyone, but the name is so bad that it calls for clear feedback. It really is.

I sincerely wish this name change had never happened. It's no longer possible to take this project seriously with a name like this (and this is highly unfortunate, considering the high importance the project). I hope that the foundation or project owners as soon as possible realize the sillyness of the situation and renames it back or to a better name. I cannot be more serious when I tell you that I genuinely though this was an Aprils fools' joke when I first read about it :-) I could never imagine anyone coming up with this and being serious about it, so that was one heck of a surprise!

Take care everyone. Again, no harm intended.

pauldraper commented 11 months ago

Is "Tofu" more or less serious then "Java"?

On Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 5:57 PM rawtaz @.***> wrote:

I must say.. The new name, OpenTofu (or anything with Tofu, for that matter), is absurdly bad. In the context of this project, it is nothing short of silly, childish, and what not. I cannot even begin to fathom how anyone, being even the slightest serious, would ever come up with such a name. It's bad beyond words. I am not saying this with the intent to be disrespectful towards anyone, but the name is so bad that it calls for clear feedback. It really is.

I sincerely wish this name change had never happened. It's no longer possible to take this project seriously with a name like this (and this is highly unfortunate, considering the high importance the project). I hope that the foundation or project owners as soon as possible realize the sillyness of the situation and renames it back or to a better name. I cannot be more serious when I tell you that I genuinely though this was an Aprils fools' joke when I first read about it :-) I could never imagine anyone coming up with this and being serious about it, so that was one heck of a surprise!

Take care everyone. Again, no harm intended.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/opentofu/opentofu/issues/296#issuecomment-1730508866, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKWTB3RV5PPFUVXX4PHKG3X3TH7LANCNFSM6AAAAAA4NCFT4I . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: @.***>

skyzyx commented 11 months ago

Regardless of how any individual person feels about the new name, a decision has been made, and this particular ship has sailed.

It's time to move forward. Let's focus on the next set of decisions.

edomaur commented 11 months ago

If "Tofu" more or less serious then "Java"?

Or more or less serious than "Python" (remember where the name come from) or "Puppet", or even "Ansible", or... "git" ? Tofu (a new Trusted Orchestration Framework Utility) is short and introduce a different subtext than "terraform" (which didn't even play much on the terraforming idea).

Now, we can use "tofu recipes" to push cloud meals. Tofu goes well with Salt, and so on, English speakers are probably better than that to find playful wordplay :-)

I don't much like the Tofu name, but I can work with it (I'm also working with a tool called "git", if this is not a bad name I'm not sure which would qualify)

lens0021 commented 11 months ago

Tofu (a new Trusted Orchestration Framework Utility)

I've not heard the acronym and it is cool. Can it be official?

dvaumoron commented 11 months ago

I agree with @skyzyx, the choice has been made, moreover would it really seem serious if the project change his name several times until no one claims disliking it ? I don't think so.

In the end, the success or failure of the project will not depend on that, as stated, there are already many example of successfull projects with more or less ridiculous names.

dvaumoron commented 11 months ago

Tofu (a new Trusted Orchestration Framework Utility)

I've not heard the acronym and it is cool. Can it be official?

Implying that we want the tool to be trusted is great, but i am not sure that Orchestration is relevant, besides that, Framework can function as a reference to the provider ecosystem.

New try : Trusted Open Framework Utility

bluszcz commented 11 months ago

Actually there is a game engine called Tofu: image

bluszcz commented 11 months ago

Also, command line tofu is being used as well by same project: image

igalklebanov commented 11 months ago

Actually there is a game engine called Tofu: image

Are we listing 52 star GH projects now as opposition to the new name?

samuel-phan commented 11 months ago

If "Tofu" more or less serious then "Java"?

We can add also "Chef" with its cookbooks, the knife command.

And Bun for Javascript 💦

Or Golang with Gophers everywhere. Or Rust...

People have always like cute fun names with a mascot. We could have named instead infractl but it's so boring, with just bones and no flesh.

rawtaz commented 11 months ago

To those comparing this issue with other software/projects using funky names; It's not the same thing. There's quite a difference between projects coming up with their own creative names more or less from the start, vs renaming a project like Terraform to such a name. I am not against fun and creative names, in fact they are just awesome when used at the right time! But taking something that is established as being the most serious contender in its market, and turning it into a ridiculous name that has absolutely no connection to what the software is about, that's a totally different matter. Had it been a new product, e.g. like Pulumi, I would not have raised any concerns if it was named Tofu from the start. It's the turning of what Terraform is and its established image, into Tofu, that is the huge problem here ;)

Let's digress. The train sailed. Arguably bad decisions were made and we will have to adapt to them. It's not the end of the world, it just hurts the image of the project but not fatally. It is what it is. I just felt it was so mindblowingly unfortunate that I had to state my opinion (even if it makes no difference). Thanks.

[Edited due to popular demand - you downvoted, I listened 🤣]

marcinwyszynski commented 11 months ago

The train sailed

That gave me a chuckle @rawtaz. Jokes aside, it is what it is. Some love it, some hate it, some don't care. Could be better, could be worse. We move on, there's a ton of work to be done.

headerl0gged commented 11 months ago

I used terraform a lot. but I don't like this new name honestly =))

inaun commented 4 months ago

I understand the "ship has sailed". But I feel I still need to comment. I have been aware of this project for a long time, and it has again come to my attention because of the recent announcement that IBM is acquiring Hashicorp. But I have to say I immediately disregarded (and still do) OpenTofu because of the name. It just screams "not a serious enterprise-class project".

A point was made comparing Tofu to Java. I'm old enough to remember when Java first came around. It got some of the same pushback, but not much. "Java" was something developers could embrace and smile at. We all work long hours, and most of us love our coffee! It was at a time when coffee was becoming more serious, and "Java" captured the essence of moving from the same old black stuff to a more refined and better caffeine fix. Not just coffee, java. It was not silly for the sake of silly, it was a connecting point with the target user base.

Chef was also called out as a comparison. But again, Chef connects. It actually describes! It is a creative name that precisely touches on what the product does. And again, Chef creates positive connotations to the project, ringing true as a creative name.

Tofu, on the other hand, is not largely loved. Tofu, in fact, has a lot of negative connotations for many people. Rather than connect with the target user base, it gives many of them immediate negative feelings. Using Tofu as a name for a project like this makes us immediately wonder "what were they thinking?" And, I'm sorry, but it also makes us wonder if the people who started and maintain this project actually know what they are doing. I'm sure they do, but the name automatically makes us question it. It makes many of us immediately think "it's worse than Terraform" instead of thinking "it might be better".

It might be time to call that ship back to port and do some retrofitting. If this project can't even manage a serious name that rings true with its target audience, why would its target audience want to even give it a chance? More than that, if the contributors to this project can't take serious feedback on the terrible name, how can we think they will take feature feedback and requests into consideration?

cube2222 commented 4 months ago

@inaun

how can we think they will take feature feedback and requests into consideration?

I would just encourage you to look at how we actually handle community requests and community contributions. The project already has over a 100 distinct contributors, and we've accepted numerous community-proposed changes. There's of course still lot's of room for improvement here, but I believe we're not doing too bad on that dimension.

Generally, the name is just slightly controversial. Most don't particularly care, some love it, some hate it. A ton of projects have "weird" names (see CockroachDB, though I think it's a fantastic name) and have no trouble succeeding in an enterprise setting. None of the enterprises we've interacted with had any issue with the name.

It's also worth noting that the name (tofu) came up completely independently in (both internal, and external like this one) name brainstorms/polls, and won each of them - again, completely independently. This solidifies my belief that, in general, our community is happy with the name. It's also really catchy and easy to remember.

It warms my heart that the Vault fork decided to continue with this naming scheme and called their project OpenBao.