Want to keep using that registry? Pay them. Those are understandable, it must be a heavy money sink to maintain that service. Isn't that odd? There are even pull requests proposed ( * ) For example, the ability to have mirrors. This is the Darth Vader business model: "I have altered the deal, pray that I don't alter it further".įirst, features that could decrease their lockin tend to linger in limbo forever. > I personally find it quite sad to see reactions on HN regarding the introduction of Docker Desktop subscription model I suspect this is what GP was getting at. So, I tend to go for open source or "bundled" solutions (like AWS) where I can avoid this process. I've suffered large production outages because of this dynamic, and I'm tired of it: it's a totally avoidable risk, and I view part of my value to my employer as helping them avoid totally avoidable risks.
So there I am, trying to run a suite of services for the company I work for, and every renewal is an existential crisis where the procurement team plays chicken with the vendor to see who will crack first in the negotiation, all the while the license expiration for my service is creeping ever closer. The engineers are always involved, but the negotiation process is arduous _every time_, and requires looping in the procurement team, who is essentially paid by how much of a discount they get off of sticker.
My experience procuring SaaS (or even just self-hosted software licenses) is that there's a very different process for those than there is for sandwiches or janitorial staff. It details all of the ups and downs of the Chandler project from the early 2000’s. If you haven’t read it, “Dreaming in Code” by Scott Rosenberg is a great story about just how hard it is to make a successful FOSS project, even for experienced teams. It is possible to make money in FOSS, but you really have to get the business plan right from the beginning. Why are there so many options for text editors? Depending on the type of tool, it might just be easier/fun to build your own tool. On the other hand, we’re developers… so many of us like building our own tools. I use Eclipse for Kava projects because it’s “good enough” and when I started programming Java, paying for IntelliJ wasn’t something I could afford. And many companies choose Eclipse because it’s free, but others choose IntelliJ because of the quality. But for each of these, there is an Eclipse project that is right there trying to keep pace.
On one hand, you have tools that people love to use that pay the bills. It is the orchestration and docker is just a path to that.Įdit: Also not super enthused about the idea that I now need to ask during a job interview what software I will be able to have locally for part of my workflow.ĭeveloper tools have always been a tough business to be in. Since Docker is in a situation where docker itself is just not what most of us really think about. There are likely other examples they have tried but likely just didn't notice. I think the reaction is perfectly valid given the companies track record.
Now they are charging for something that was once free without really explaining any benefits? But they added that artificial limitation after release. I was perfectly happy with what it was currently doing and had no desire to update.
Which spawned companies like AWS to announce their own free alternative/mirror.Īt some point with in the last few months they made it so without paying I was forced to update docker desktop or constantly have to click snooze. Last year (?) they started limiting pulls from docker hub unless you paid up. They tried to go the support route like RedHat and others, but who needed just Docker support? Especially when there orchestration layer was basically DOA with k8s available. If docker desktop was originally subscription based or they said that they wanted to make it subscription based later than the reaction would be very different.īut Docker as a company has failed multiple times now to attempt to make money and this feels like a hostage situation by taking away a tool that many now rely on. My problem is less that it is happening but how we got here.