I'm looking to introduce CM to my homelab, anyone got some good arguments why I should look at puppet/openvox instead of ansible?
Per https://voxpupuli.org/openvox/ , this is a community fork of Puppet (the tool like ansible/chef/salt), not Puppet (the browser automation tool). In case anyone else was confused too.
What's the story behind the name OpenVox? Hard to draw relation to Puppet from it.
I am a user of puppet and have used many of the community puppet modules developed under the Vox Pupuli group ( They have 175 modules on puppet forge: https://forge.puppet.com/modules/puppet ). Looks like I've missed the news and they're (soft) forking puppet as OpenVox; does the following appear right?
Summary of what I can find: It seems Perforce have announced they will stop providing open source puppet's public binaries and the public package repositories. Private access to their binaries will require either developer license (with one of the limits being 25 nodes) or a commercial license. Secondly, they are reducing public source code contributions to Puppet. A response to this by Overlook InfraTech / Vox Pupuli has resulted in a fork called OpenVox.
Regarding the first issue, Perforce's halt to providing open source puppet's public binaries / package repos: Posted on the "Puppet By Perforce" blog 2024-11-07 https://www.puppet.com/blog/open-source-puppet-updates-2025
> In early 2025, Puppet will begin to ship any new binaries and packages developed by our team to a private, hardened, and controlled location.
> Community contributors will have free access to this private repo under the terms of an End-User License Agreement (EULA) for development use. There will be no license changes for the open source version of Puppet.
This is backed up by nightlies suspended from 2024-11-06 https://nightlies.puppet.com/apt/dists/index.html . From the blog post, it would appear that access to binaries is only going to be free for 25 nodes.
> The new development license is an EULA that allows developers free access to our hardened Puppet releases (up to 25 nodes). Capacities higher than 25 nodes will require a Puppet Labs Support Commercial License.
> Community developers will continue to have access to binaries and packages for development purposes under a new developer license (EULA).
Releases prior to the annoucement appear available, but there is no statement suggesting that will remain in the blog post. I have a few dozen physicals and a few dozen VMs running puppet but don't have a commercial license, so this will impact me.
Regarding the second issue, reducing public source code contributions to Puppet, there is this from the same blog post:
> We will release hardened Puppet releases to a new location and will slow down the frequency of commits of source code to public repositories.
Regarding the community response, it seemed to start with providing community packages and has become the "soft fork"? From https://voxpupuli.org/openvox/
> OpenVox started life as a Puppet™ mirror by Overlook InfraTech to continue providing community packages when Perforce discontinued public packaging efforts in late Fall of 2024. It soon became clear that they were also moving all further Puppet™ development to internal forks and ceasing development on open source Puppet™. A community fork using Overlook InfraTech's packaging pipeline was the inevitable response.
> We consider OpenVox a soft-fork because we intend to maintain downstream compatibility for as long as we are able. As such, we've created a Puppet™ Standards Steering Committee to set the direction of features and language evolutions and have invited Perforce to participate.
1. I didn't realize puppet was open core.
2. OpenVox sounds like a text to speech engine.
3. What is the main use case of Puppet / OpenVox in 2025? Same as always? Isn't CM a lot less relevant in the age of platforms like Flatcar and Bottlerocket?
4. Why fork puppet instead of contributing to ansible or salt?