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What has Docker become?

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Re: What has Docker become?

#61

Post by chuckadams »

gf000 wrote: post #46
chuckadams wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nix is wonderful for reproducible and declarative infrastructure, but how do you manage multiple server instances with it? I have a handful of projects active at any time, and am currently running four web servers, three mysql instances, two postgres, and a partridge in a pear tree. Should I run Nix in Docker, Docker from Nix, or is there a nix-only solution for this?

I may misunderstand your problem, but I just have a configuration repository for various "hosts". There are a couple of settings I share between them, and then just specify the differences. "Deploying" one is as simple as `nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#hostName`

These are all dev environments running at the same time. I wasn't sure if Nix had some kind of port mapping or proxy config for this sort of thing. I'm still partial to having containers as self-contained build artifacts, I just like to have options as dev environments go, and "Docker from Nix" looks like the best option so far. But it's a vast ecosystem, and there's plenty I might be missing.

Re: What has Docker become?

#62

Post by IshKebab »

iberator wrote: post #55
esafak wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/docs/tutorial...

It's hilarious. Your 'solution' to use docker without root is to make some system changes as root and then use/build docker LOL.

Uhm no. Podman is a different product that is pretty much a drop-in replacement for Docker but lets you run as non-root.

You have to be root to set it up, but after that you don't need any special privileges. With Docker the only option is to basically give everyone root access.

It's true that it requires root for some setup though. Unclear if op was complaining about that.

Re: What has Docker become?

#63

Post by dralley »

mg794613 wrote: post #45

"The problem is that Docker the technology became so successful that Docker the company struggled to monetize it. When your core product becomes commoditized and open source, you need to find new ways to add value." No, everything was already open source, other had done it before too, they just made it in a way a lot of "normal" users could start with it, then they waited too long and others created better/their own…

It didn't help them that they rejected the traditionally successful ways of monetizing open source software. Which is, selling support contracts to large corporate users.

Corporate customers didn't like the security implications of the Docker daemon running as root, they wanted better sandboxing and management (cgroups v2), wanted to be able to run their own internal registries, didn't want to have docker trying to fight with systemd, etc.

Docker was not interested (in the early years) in adopting cgroups v2 or daemonless / rootless operation, and they wanted everyone to pay to use Dockerhub on the public internet rather than running their own internal registries, so docker-cli didn't support alternate registries for a long long time. And it seemed like they disliked systemd for "ideological" reasons to an extent that they didn't make much effort to resolve the problems that would crop up between docker and systemd.

Because Docker didn't want to build the product that corporate customers wanted to use, and didn't accept patches when Red Hat tried to get them implemented those features themselves, eventually Red Hat just went out and built up Podman, Quay, and the entire ecosystem of tooling that those corporate customers wanted themselves (and sold it to them). That was a bit of an own goal.

Re: What has Docker become?

#64

Post by bootsmann »

szszrk wrote: post #53
koe123 wrote: post #18

Honestly I reach for podman or `nix develop` any chance I get. What is the edge that docker provides these days?

How do you manage your containers in podman declaratively? I tried to substitute docker-compose with Podman and Quadlets on a test server the other day, but was shocked how badly described the overall concept is. Most materials I found glimpsed through ability to run it as root/user and how different that is in configuration, and repeated the same 4-6 commands mantra. Spent a few hours on it and just... failed to run…

Yeah I think Quadlet just has bad docs. They document the whole API but iirc there is no: ok this is the hello world for running cowsay as a systemd unit

Re: What has Docker become?

#65

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

Moto7451 wrote: post #36

One thing that really hurt them from my PoV was how they acted when they changed their licensing structure with respect to revenue generating companies. I’m fine with the idea that licensing Docker and Docker Desktop is a good thing to do. However, I think they just made people distrust their motives with their approached to this. At two places I worked their reps reached out to essentially ensnare the company in a s…

    Due to the usual “mid size software company not micromanaging the developers”
    standard
You didn't have a device management system or similar product managing software installs (SCCM in Windows land)? That's table stakes for any admin.

Re: What has Docker become?

#66

Post by okanat »

amonith wrote: post #38
wilsonpa wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I work across multiple vscode projects (locally), some use dev-containers and others don't. I have never noticed any difference in experience across the two. I have also used them remotely (ssh and using tailscale) and noticed a little lag, but nothing really distracting.

Most likely a Windows or MacOS user, where docker runs in a linux VM. Optimized as much as possible and lightweight, but still a VM.

No, on Windows it is very quick too. On WSL2 compiling Rust programs are almost as fast as Linux on bare metal. However the files need to live inside the Linux filesystem. Sharing with Windows drives actually compiles slower than native Windows.

Re: What has Docker become?

#67

Post by airstrike »

LtWorf wrote: post #56
rmccue wrote: post #42

> Docker’s journey reads like a startup trying to find product-market fit, except Docker already had product-market fit Strongly disagree. The core Docker technology was an excellent product and as the article says, had a massive impact on the industry. But they never found a market for that technology at any price point that wasn't ~free, so they didn't have PMF. That technology also only took off in the way it did…

The entire technology is a wrapper on setns().

And Dropbox is just curlftpfs

Re: What has Docker become?

#68

Post by godzillabrennus »

I switched to Podman on Windows and found it less laggy, and it works fine for local development. I'm sure I'm missing some features, but as Docker continues to struggle to generate revenue, the open-source option will be important to an increasingly large part of the industry.

FYI- If I was docker, I'd stand up some bare metal hosting (i.e., a Docker Cloud) designed around making it easier for novice developers to take containers and turn them into web applications, with a product similar to Supabase built around this cloud to let novice developers quickly prototype and launch apps without learning how to do deployments in more sophisticated clouds. Supabase and AI vibe coders pair well, but the hole in the market is vibe coders who want to launch a web app vibe coded but don't know how to deploy containers to the cloud without a steep learning curve. It keeps many vibe coders trapped in AIO vibe coding platforms like Lovable and AI Studio.

Re: What has Docker become?

#69

Post by dangus »

Moto7451 wrote: post #36

One thing that really hurt them from my PoV was how they acted when they changed their licensing structure with respect to revenue generating companies. I’m fine with the idea that licensing Docker and Docker Desktop is a good thing to do. However, I think they just made people distrust their motives with their approached to this. At two places I worked their reps reached out to essentially ensnare the company in a s…

They basically made the case for podman existing, and I see podman gaining steam and being easier and easier to drop in as a replacement for Docker.

If they never changed that licensing, nobody would have had an incentive to put big effort into an alternative.

I think the hosted Docker registry should have been their first revenue source and then they should have created more closed source enterprise workflow solutions and hosted services that complement the docker tooling that remained truly open source, including desktop.

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