DevOps startup System Initiative has announced that it is open sourcing all of its software under the Apache 2.0 license:
"No features are reserved, no restrictions on competition, and no special rights reserved to allow us to change the rules of the game going forward. You can learn more about how this works in our open source FAQ ."
The San Francisco-based System Initiative was founded in 2019. The company’s CEO, Adam Jacob, was the co-founder and chief technology officer of Chef Software and the original author of Chef; Chef was acquired by Progress for $220 million in 2020.
The System Initiative's vision is "the second wave of DevOps" and aims to rebuild DevOps from the ground up, eliminating the flaws in the DevOps process.
“Our goal was not to build a better version of existing DevOps tools, but to find a way to achieve an order-of-magnitude improvement across the experience. The System Initiative was designed to address what we knew existed in the environment Complexity — it’s a powerful tool built for power users. What we’re open sourcing today is a powerful foundational technology upon which to build a better future, and we’re proud of that.”
According to the announcement, the decision to open source the System Initiative software was based on the belief that open source is the path most likely to achieve the transformative impact it envisions. "If it's not just an interesting concept or a successful product, then it's not just a tool for our success. It has to be a tool for your success too."
In June of this year, System Initiative announced the completion of a US$15 million Series A round of financing, led by Scale Venture Partners.