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Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

blog.alexellis.io

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Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#131

Docker the tool has been a massive benefit to software development, every now and then I have a moan about the hassle of getting something bootstrapped to run on Docker, but it's still worlds better than the old ways of managing dependencies and making sure everyone on a project is aligned on what versions of things are installed. Unfortunately Docker the company appears to be dying, this is the latest in a long line…

Docker should have been a neat tool made by one enthusiast, just like curl is. Instead it has a multi-million dollar company behind it, and VC's who demand profits from a thing that shouldn't have ever had a business plan.

In all fairness, curl is purely a software tool. Docker is arguably more like a service. As such, it creates costs for and direct dependency on the entity behind it.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#132
post #93

Is there any drop in replacement for dockerhub? I’m concerned about all my random oss containers (like ruby-latest) that may come from orgs that aren’t able or willing to pay. Is there another container hosting site?

You can run the docker registry inside dokku. It's fantastic. I have an endpoint that is private for pushing with credentials, and a public endpoint that is open. This requires a little mucking around with the nginx configuration of the app, but totally doable.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Podman is great and is first class citizen on Fedora. It also integrates nicely with SystemD. My only gripe with it is not many developers provide podman configuration on their install pages like they do with docker compose

Tangent: Why is the misspelling "SystemD" so common, when it has always been "systemd"? I would understand "Systemd" or "SYSTEMD" or something, but why specifically this weird spelling?

Probably to specifically call it out as "systemd" versus autocorrected misspelling of "systems".

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a pretty good track record in code hosting (15 years), why would they ruin it for containers?

The 6-8 orders of magnitude difference in storage required?

We need a culture to not use resources even if it is available and cheap. Use github like it wasn't free.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#135
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dev model of "we've lost track of our dependencies so ship Ubuntu and a load of state" never sat well. Docker, the company, is failing. Docker, as in containerization technology, is alive and very well. (edited for clarity)

>> Docker, the company, is failing. Docker, the container technology, is alive and very well. Is it though? Podman is more well liked (no daemon / non-root) and Kubernetes doesn't have direct support for it any more. I don't think it matters much that k8s uses CRI-O but docker needs to be #1 for running a container on a single machine. Yet, they seem to be letting that slip away because it is not directly monetizable…

Tell that to svb

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#136

Docker the tool has been a massive benefit to software development, every now and then I have a moan about the hassle of getting something bootstrapped to run on Docker, but it's still worlds better than the old ways of managing dependencies and making sure everyone on a project is aligned on what versions of things are installed. Unfortunately Docker the company appears to be dying, this is the latest in a long line…

> Unfortunately Docker the company appears to be dying, this is the latest in a long line of decisions that are clearly being made because they can't work out how to build a business around what is at it's core a nice UI for Linux containers.

It should have been just a small company, doing this, and making some money for their trouble instead of whatever it is they're trying to be.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#137

Docker the tool has been a massive benefit to software development, every now and then I have a moan about the hassle of getting something bootstrapped to run on Docker, but it's still worlds better than the old ways of managing dependencies and making sure everyone on a project is aligned on what versions of things are installed. Unfortunately Docker the company appears to be dying, this is the latest in a long line…

Docker should have been a neat tool made by one enthusiast, just like curl is. Instead it has a multi-million dollar company behind it, and VC's who demand profits from a thing that shouldn't have ever had a business plan.

It seems like another symptom of zirp/cheap money.

Lots of ideas that could have been a neat feature or tool somehow ended up raising $500M of funding with no viable plan on ever monetizing.

The fact that the product is successful but after a decade they barely make $50M/year of revenue against $500M of lifetime funding is crazy. As a user, you can work at a company with a billion in revenue and barely owe them a few thousand/year. Or you might just use Podman for free, and prefer it due some of the design differences.

At the very least, a lot of these firms, with VC pressure, overstayed their welcome as private enterprises and should have sold themselves to a larger firm.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#138
post #107
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I can do a lot of record revenue and earnings selling five dollar bills for $4. I'm curious what a path to profit would look like...is this kind of squeeze the only way to get there?

Docker Hub is a massive expense when you consider the data storage and egress. To do that for open source projects you have to wither (a) have a lot of income to cover such an expense, (b) a pile of VC funding to cover the expense, or (c) pile on the debt paying for it while you grow. (b) and (c) can only live on so long.

That's a self inflicted problem by docker hub squatting the root namespace, though.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#139
I think it's an interesting challenge with FOSS infrastructure in general, and I'm surprised it isn't more of an issue.

Docker's storage is heavier than most, but what about other repositories like maven central, and npm? There must be significant costs associated with running those.

These tools are all the backbone of modern software dev, and need a business model. It's reasonable that consumers should pay for the benefit. I think Docker have screwed the execution of this transition, but the overall pattern of "someone has to pay" is one I support.

Personally, I pay for Docker. I use it every day, and get value from it.

The argument that the OP makes is really valid though - OSS needs distribution channels, which need to be funded - and expecting the publisher to pay for this isn't always appropriate.

I'd like to see something like the equivalent of CNCF which I can buy a subscription from, and it funnels money to the comapnies and developers that keep me in a job -- almost a Spotify model for OSS and it's supporting infrastructure.

Re: Docker is deleting Open Source organisations - what you need to know

#140
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Docker should have been a neat tool made by one enthusiast, just like curl is. Instead it has a multi-million dollar company behind it, and VC's who demand profits from a thing that shouldn't have ever had a business plan.

In all fairness, curl is purely a software tool. Docker is arguably more like a service. As such, it creates costs for and direct dependency on the entity behind it.

Docker is a software tool. Docker Hub is a service. If Docker didn't stand up Docker Hub the equivalent services from GitHub, Google et al would have competed on a more even playing field.
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