This blog post by Chris Swan, Policy Debt, was included in the September 8, 2019 edition of DevOps Weekly (subscribe here if you haven’t already). Many of the points Chris raises are likely familiar to folks who have been working in operations, systems engineering, or DevOps for any length of time.

Below is a message that I sent to all Chef employees today about recent events affecting Chef.   Chefs, I want to provide an update on recent events affecting Chef and changes that we’re making. As many of you know, we began our work with the U.S. Government in earnest in 2014 and 2015.

[Update on 9/23/2019 at 7.15am] Read blog from CEO Barry Crist for a further update on the event. I would like to provide an update to the community about the incident that impacted Chef-client run failures yesterday and give you a sense of what has been happening behind the scenes.

[Update on 9/23/2019 at 8.55pm] Read this blog from CEO Barry Crist for a further update on the event. Yesterday was one of the most trying days of my career.

[Update on 9/23/2019 at 8.55pm] Read this blog from CEO Barry Crist for a further update on the event. Below is an e-mail I sent to all Chef employees today sharing my views on our contract with DHS-ICE. This is an incredibly important, difficult and divisive topic and one I care deeply about.

It’s that time of year, the leaves are starting to change color in the northern hemisphere, kids are back at school, people who don’t have kids seem to have all gone on vacation at the same time in this “shoulder season”. We’re right around the corner from fall, Halloween, and Hacktoberfest! What is Hacktoberfest?

In the past 6 months, Chef has taken a number of big steps forward as we modernize our automation solutions including the announcement of Chef Enterprise Automation Stack, the new versions of Chef Infra, Chef InSpec and Chef Habitat, and a shift to 100% Open Source software.

In order to migrate an application from one Windows Server Operating System to another, we have to be able to gather all of the dynamic-link libraries (“DLLs”).

Time has rolled around again and we’re looking to elect a new set of community leaders. Ideally, we’re looking for three fresh new faces! Tim, Dan, and Joseph have been working hard in the background for the past three years and we’re looking to shake things up.