While at the Austin InnoTech conference, I talked with Luke Kanies about Puppet, the open source server configuration automation (or “provisioning” in my personal lexicon) project. Luke first gives us a detailed overview of Puppet: what it does, how it works, and the puppet DSL. We then discuss the benefits and draw-backs of running the product as an open source project and discuss how Luke is seeking to balance commercializing the project with maintaining the good will of the Puppet community.