May 2025 – Key Changes in Puppet Core and the Rise of OpenVox: A Recap

In November, Perforce announced a significant shift. Puppet Open Source has been officially forked and will now be developed  behind closed doors in a private repository under the new name Puppet Core. 

What's changing?

Puppet Core is now only accessible via a private package repository and requires users to accept the new EULA, which has a few noteworthy restrictions: Free usage is limited to 25 nodes and the developer version of the EULA currently restricts testing with CI/CD pipelines and source code inspection, making it effectively unusable for community contributors.

In addition, Perforce has drastically reduced update frequency to public repositories — officially to prioritize stability and security. As of this writing, not a single commit has been made since the transition. 
Furthermore, Puppet Core won't support newly released operating systems from Puppet Enterprise, raising concerns about extended waiting times, potential compatibility issues, and serious challenges for testing. Especially since neither the community nor Perforce themselves uses Puppet Core or Enterprise for such purposes.

What stays the same?

While Puppet Core remains under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, Perforce can technically withhold the source code as long as they provide a detailed changelog —  effectively undermining the spirit of open source.
Perforce has also stated its intention to maintain collaboration with the community: This includes the continuation of Puppet Forge, the central hub for community modules. There are also plans for a Language Steering Committee made up of people who use Puppet on a daily basis: members from the community, from Perforce and from consulting firms. These members are trying to align Open Source, Core, and Enterprise, though the practical details remain unclear.

Our Alternative: The OpenVox Project

After years of contributing to Puppet, many in the community feel sidelined by the recent announcement,  especially because of the lack of transparency and increased restrictions. In response, we (the Vox Pupuli team along with former developers at Perforce) launched the OpenVox Project.
Available since January, version 8.11 serves as a fully functional drop-in replacement for Puppet, retaining the same commands and directory structure while replacing internal package references. Therefore, OpenVox is currently fully compatible with Puppet and we are committed to maintaining this status.


Looking Ahead

We hope you're as excited as we are to take the next step with OpenVox. As an open-source community project, OpenVox depends on the support of passionate people like you. If you'd like to contribute, you can do so here. 
P.S.: There is a highlight coming up
Last but not least, we are excited to share a special announcement with you: Our first conference called VoxConf is happening on July 17 in Nuremberg, Germany!

Thanks to our friends at NETWAYS, who are kindly providing the venue, we can spend the morning (9 AM–12 PM) together with talks all about Puppet and OpenVox. It's a great opportunity to connect in person, but if you cannot make it on site, online participation will be available. Want to be a speaker? We're currently accepting proposals for 25- or 45-minute sessions. We also got you covered if you need travel funding. Send us your topic idea or funding request by June 20 to <mailto:pmc@voxpupuli.org|pmc@voxpupuli.org>. 

But there's more: right after VoxConf, our friends from Foreman will host their annual birthday event, so you'll have two great reasons to join us! And If you want even more community time, you can join our get-together the evening before.

Best of all? Admission is free. You can grab your tickets here.
Thanks for being part of the community. Stay tuned and see you soon!

~ your Vox Pupuli team