Why does SaltStack require licensing for AIX and Solaris minions ?

AIX and Solaris minions are classified as "enterprise" offerings because minions for these operating systems are not adequately developed and maintained by the Open Source community. This is the result of several factors:

1. The skills and knowledge to develop modules on these Operating Systems are less prevalent within the Open Source Community;
2. Specialized hardware and software is required to test and maintain these modules.

In both cases the result is that SaltStack Inc. deploys our own skilled developers and resources to build and maintain these Enterprise modules. This ensures that these Enterprise minions are developed, tested and maintained at an enterprise level and in accordance with the best practices of the respective platforms.

Since the cost of creation and maintenance rests with SaltStack Inc, SaltStack chooses to put the modules in our Enterprise product.

Although these Enterprise Minions do not currently have parity with the Linux minions, SaltStack is always working to improve, enhance, and evolve the module base for Enterprise Minions. With every release of Salt, SaltStack adds new modules and update existing modules.

Feature-Requests are evaluated on demand as part of SaltStacks ongoing efforts to improve the module offerings for SaltStack’s Enterprise Minions.