OpenVox: The Community-Driven Fork of Puppet Has Arrived
The DevOps automation landscape is set for a significant shift as Puppet‘s open-source community launches OpenVox, a fork of the popular Puppet Infrastructure as Code tool.
This fork sprang from Puppet’s owner, Perforce, moving Puppet’s binaries and packages to a private, hardened, and controlled location. In addition, community contributors would have limited access to the program, and usage beyond 25 nodes will require a commercial license. These changes have been resisted by long-time Puppet users and contributors who started this fork.
Perforce Abandons Open Source
According to a blog post by Ben Ford, a Puppet software engineer, “It soon became clear that all further Puppet development would be moved to internal forks and that Perforce’s open source Puppet would see no further development.” Therefore, the community had to set off on its own path.
While initially referred to as the OpenPuppetProject, the community, now known as Vox Pupuli, has settled on OpenVox as the fork’s name. This decision came after Perforce explicitly refused to allow the use of the Puppet name. OpenVox started life as a Puppet mirror by Overlook InfraTech to provide community packages in late 2024 when Perforce discontinued public packaging efforts.
OpenVox to the Rescue
The OpenVox project aims to continue Puppet’s work while adhering to open-source principles. A GitHub repository has been set up, and discussions are ongoing regarding the project’s organizational structure and future direction.
OpenVox was launched in late 2024 as a Puppet mirror by Overlook InfraTech to provide community packages. Vox Pupuli describes it as a “soft fork.” The group intends to maintain downstream compatibility for as long as possible. Indeed, the new Puppet Standards Steering Committee will include seats representing the whole community, including Perforce. Whether Perforce is interested in joining them is another question.
Vox Pupuli published the first release of OpenVox on January 21st. OpenVox 8.11 is functionally equivalent to Puppet 8.11, the program’s latest release. Future OpenVox versions will build on this functionality while intentionally maintaining compatibility with Puppet.
That said, OpenVox won’t slavishly follow Puppet. Its plans include:
- Modernize the OpenVox codebase and ecosystem. In particular, the developers plan to support current operating systems and Ruby versions rather than relying on fifteen-year-old unmaintained RubyGems.
- Recentering and focusing on community requirements. Actual usage patterns will drive development rather than which customer has the deepest pockets at the moment.
- Democratizing platform support. Instead of waiting a year for Puppet to support the current release of Ubuntu Linux, community members can contribute to the project themselves.
- Maintaining an active and responsive open-source community. Yes, your pull request will finally get reviewed.
The DevOps community is watching OpenVox take shape with interest. The fork represents not just a technical divergence but a philosophical one, emphasizing the importance of open collaboration in software development.
OpenVox’s success will depend on community support and contributions. As the project evolves, it may attract users wary of Perforce’s new direction for Puppet, potentially reshaping the landscape of infrastructure automation tools.
Interesting in trying it? You can replace an existing Puppet installation or start fresh on a test system using the instructions provided on Vox Pupuli’s install docs page. If you need professional help, two companies are providing OpenVox migration services and support options.
