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MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

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Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#251

Post by Eisenstein »

geodel wrote: post #230
Eisenstein wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are digging in a little too hard here. If someone offers a capability that you don't have, and you build that into something you use, then saying that they should be ready for it to go away at any time and be happy to have had it, seems a little too much. If there had never been an offer, they would not have built around it, and would have found another solution and, even if harder or more inconvenient, l…

Huh, even employment nowadays doesn't come with month or two notice from employers. And here some one giving things gratis need to issue notice lest you might be inconvenienced.

Do you actually want everyone to treat everyone else like employers treat their employees? I don't think that is as good of an argument as you think it is.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#252

Post by bigstrat2003 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #231
Hendrikto wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad analogy. We are talking about building a very simple Docker image. It is more like you went around your neighborhood and turned peoples lights on in the evening, then stopped. Sure, it’s a lost convenience, but people can easily choose to just… push the button themselves. Or pay somebody to continue doing it for them. Or get a timer. It’s really not a big deal, and there are plenty of alternatives.

OK - I live in a place that's snowy for a lot of the year. I shovel not only my sidewalk but my neighbours' several houses on both sides. People are really happy and grateful. Over the years Mr. Johnson the senior on a fixed pension next door loses mobility and is really appreciative I keep his walk clean. The couple next to him has a new baby and a clear sidewalk helps them load up all the accompanying gear into the…

Actually, in your analogy the reason why you stopped matters a great deal. For example, if you stopped shoveling snow because you are sick/injured, or because you are caring for a family member, nobody would think less of you as a neighbor. It's only if you stopped for a selfish reason that people would negatively judge your neighborliness. So to the extent that the analogy is instructive as to how we should think about MinIO's actions, we would have to judge the reason why they did this and decide whether that is worth thinking less of them.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#253

Post by throwway120385 »

Kevinmetaba wrote: post #249
nunez wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, I'm concerned that a YC investment means more of the same, eventually: open-source until it's no longer fiscally prudent.

Is open source and making money in conflict? If they do a good job, I am willing to pay.

Not necessarily, but if there's a cost to providing free support to the community like official container images, then it will get cut. People comment that it's "free" to provide these things through Github, but it actually has a cost to the maintainers in time, and it's frankly an easy business decision to stop doing that at times in favor of roadmap work that produces business value.

What I'm learning from this is to provide basically zero support from the outset and let it grow organically if I ever build a business on an open source product. As soon as you stop supporting anything for free someone feels entitled to it.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#254

Post by goku12 »

ksajadi wrote: post #193

I think both sides of this argument are correct: 1. MinIO is a business and they don't owe anything to anyone for free. 2. People using the OSS version also are free to express their dissatisfaction. This is not contract law though. This is about using OSS as a marketing gimmick to get mindshare, penetrate the market and then do a bait and switch. From one hand, it is within their right to do whatever they want as ma…

I agree with all the points you make. Just adding a detail to the following bit:

> 1. MinIO is a business and they don't owe anything to anyone for free.

I don't think MinIO discontinuing the free docker image is really the problem here. Creating and distributing such images cost them practically nothing - either in infrastructure costs or in HR costs. If they find it that difficult, they only need to say it. Either the community or another company will gladly take it up for free. Even other cloud projects have alternative distributions like Bitnami builds.

The real issue is the pattern of behavior that this move exposes. They seem to have removed the web UI from the community edition claiming that it's hard to maintain (another thing the community would have gladly taken up if they were informed). They also stopped updating the community documentation. And these largely escaped attention until the docker build was discontinued. That itself is controversial since much effort wasn't spent in letting the users know that their current image was going to suffer bitrot indefinitely. Apparently there was also a CVE which was fixed in the source. They didn't consider it necessary to at least push the fixed container as a final measure.

All these are certainly hostile and unkind towards the community and it's bordering on dishonesty. They didn't lie. But neither did they do the bare minimum expected when taking such a drastic measure. It's clear that they're withdrawing their generosity for more profits after gaining a lot of mindshare with their earlier offering. I don't believe that the docker image alone would have inflamed the community so much.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#255

Post by rustc »

timeon wrote: post #187
MuteXR wrote: post #7

Keep in mind this is the same project that removed all useful functionality from the included web UI in the community edition with the excuse that it was too much effort to maintain. This is another case of VC-funded companies pulling up the ladder behind themselves.

I understand the frustration; however using anything VC-funded, you are not paying for, is pretty risky.

It's still risky if you pay unless you have a contract guaranteeing what the renewal price would be.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#256

Post by hrimfaxi »

palmotea wrote: post #245
protonbob wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were given the ratchet and then someone wanted to charge you every time you use it you would also be pissed.

> If you were given the ratchet and then someone wanted to charge you every time you use it you would also be pissed. People gotta eat. If someone's making valuable tools and giving them away, they still need to get paid somehow. If people aren't voluntarily tipping them enough, then something's gotta give. There have been too many stories of open source developers basically burning themselves out for years, then it…

> People gotta eat. If someone's making valuable tools and giving them away, they still need to get paid somehow. If people aren't voluntarily tipping them enough, then something's gotta give.

No one is saying people can't charge for their work though.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#257

Post by [deleted] »

jraph wrote: post #82
eptcyka wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody signed any service level agreements, the docker images were provided on good will. If this is business critical for you, consider paying someone to solve this problem for you. Maybe even consider paying for a F/OSS solution so you are not the only one funding what should be a community effort. I do concede that they could’ve done a better job communicating these changes. But they don’t have to.

To me, there are two aspects: - if you rely on something, you should make sure you can reasonably rely on it (indeed, for instance by paying someone) - if you provide something, even for free, you should expect people will rely on it and you shouldn't pull the plug overnight if you can help it (of course, if you run out of business or something bad happens to you, that's something else). There is some kind of implici…

[deleted]

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#258

Post by tw04 »

mattbee wrote: post #89

They abandoned documentation (edit: for the open source codebase) a couple of weeks ago - that seems more significant. From their Slack on Oct 10: "The documentation sites at docs.min.io/community have been pulled of this morning and will redirect to the equivalent AIStor documentation where possible ". [emphasis mine] The minio/docs repository hasn't been updated in 2 weeks now, and the implication is that isn't goi…

>The price of support comes in at at slightly less than the equivalent amount of S3 storage

That's absurd. I would be running to NetApp and Dell for competitive object storage quotes then. Haven't done pricing on either one recently but at least a few years ago they were roughly half the price of S3 all in (including hosting costs).

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#259

Post by rustc »

nik736 wrote: post #208
stanac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we need a fork? As an example, ffmpeg is source only for mac and windows, which just means someone else is building and distributing binaries.

They changed their license to AGPL, removed features (Web UI, etc.) and now they don't provide docker images/binaries. It's their project but; what's next?

> what's next?

Removing existing Docker images? Seems unlikely.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#260

Post by hrimfaxi »

serf wrote: post #185
nilamo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strange mindset, IMO. I'd be pissed if I had to pay $0.10 every time I turned a rachet, and it's weird to expect companies to have usage-based monetization on the tools they've made for others.

did you buy the ratchet? that's why you'd be pissed.

In this example the ratchet manufacturer would be giving them away for free though, and then get pissed when no one volunteers to pay.
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