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MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

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Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#81

Post by jamesnorden »

gear54rus wrote: post #70
Tepix wrote: post #12

It's an Open Source project - I don't understand what people are complaining about. Noone is entitled to receive free Docker images. I'm sure if there is enough demand, someone else who is trustworthy will step up and automate building them. What I'd like to complain about instead is the pricing page on the Min.io webpage - it doesn't list any pricing. Looking at https://cloudian.com/blog/minios-ui-removal-leaves-org…

Or one can just use old images. Which is what many people started doing after their other fuckup - removing perfectly working web UI from free version. They just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot that didn't even heal from last time. The last tag with a working web UI is RELEASE.2025-04-22T22-12-26Z btw.

Terrible advice when a CVE is being discussed.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#82

Post by jraph »

eptcyka wrote: post #52
weli wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation, people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation. You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images especially after a CVE and with no prior notice (except a hidden commit 4 days ago that updated the README) is approaching malicious-level actions. If they truly cared ab…

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 implicit commitment. Nobody should be entitled to receive free pre-built Docker images, but OTOH what's the point of even providing pre-built Docker images if you expect people not to rely on them? This feels pointless and you probably shouldn't start providing them in the first place if you have this expectation.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#83

Post by jmorenoamor »

Tepix wrote: post #12

It's an Open Source project - I don't understand what people are complaining about. Noone is entitled to receive free Docker images. I'm sure if there is enough demand, someone else who is trustworthy will step up and automate building them. What I'd like to complain about instead is the pricing page on the Min.io webpage - it doesn't list any pricing. Looking at https://cloudian.com/blog/minios-ui-removal-leaves-org…

But a properly built image is a nice part of a product release.

Building a quality production ready image is not trivial, and it's always welcomed from the vendor.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#84

Post by DannyBee »

Tepix wrote: post #12

It's an Open Source project - I don't understand what people are complaining about. Noone is entitled to receive free Docker images. I'm sure if there is enough demand, someone else who is trustworthy will step up and automate building them. What I'd like to complain about instead is the pricing page on the Min.io webpage - it doesn't list any pricing. Looking at https://cloudian.com/blog/minios-ui-removal-leaves-org…

"It's an Open Source project - I don't understand what people are complaining about. Noone is entitled to receive free Docker images. "

While this is true, in all of these discussions, somewhere the notion of responsibility often gets lost.

If you publish a project, encourage people to use it, promote it heavily, etc, then get lots of users, and then decide to kill it, while it's true you legally owe nobody anything, it's sort of crazy to claim people are acting entitled when they complain.

After all, you encouraged people to use it and promoted it!

Again, do you legally owe them anything? Nope.

I am much more empathetic towards those who get surprised by the growth of their projects, or otherwise didn't try to make their project popular and decide to quit when it becomes too large too quickly and becomes a burden.

In general, if you try to encourage lots of people to use or do something and succeed at that, you end up with various forms of social responsibility to those people. That's true in most things, not just open source.

Open source does not get a pass at this social reality simply because, as a legal reality, those users are not owed anything.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#85

Post by xavxav »

adamcharnock wrote: post #40

We're working on a binary build process now. We hope to have something up at https://github.com/golithus soon. We use MinIO (community edition) a fair amount. And while we like it, it is also becoming increasingly clear that our days of deploying are numbered. We want to start experimenting with Garage for smaller deployments, and would be interesting to hear of any production experiences there. (Anyone done multi-Pi…

garage devs have told me of 10PiB+ deployments in production, but I've never operated one at that scale so I can't share much insight into the experience. Probably best to ask on their matrix chat.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#86

Post by antonyh »

I don't see the problem here in theory - if I want to trust something fully I'll build it myself in my own pipeline, often with additional hardening as needed. It only needs scripting out the build process to fit alongside my other code. I even do this for Linux apps like Signal because I want a clean binary that matches the Git tag, packaged exactly right for my system, built with the libraries already in place locally.

What's not cool is not pushing a fresh Docker image to secure the CVE, leaving anyone using Docker hanging. Regardless of the new policy, they should have followed through and made the fix public on all distribution channels. Leaving a known unsafe version as the last release is irresponsible.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#87

Post by DannyBee »

Hendrikto wrote: post #61
weli wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation, people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation. You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images especially after a CVE and with no prior notice (except a hidden commit 4 days ago that updated the README) is approaching malicious-level actions. If they truly cared ab…

> When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though. > people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody. > You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images […] is appro…

"That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though."

This is true legally, but not otherwise (socially, practically)

"That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody."

Again, true legally, but IMHO a really silly position to take overall.

Imagine I provide free electricity to everyone in my town. I encourage everyone to use it. I do it all for free. I'm very careful to ensure the legal framework means i have no obligation, and everyone knows i have no obligations to them legally. They all take me up on it. All the other providers wither and die as a result. 15 years later, i decide to shut it all down on a whim because i want to move on to other things. The lights go out for the town everywhere.

Saying "i have no legal obligations" is true, but expecting people to not be pissed off, complain, and expect me to not do this is at best, naive.

Calling them entitled is even funnier. It's sort of irrelevant if they are entitled or not, after i put them in this position.

Legal obligation is not the only form of obligation, and not even the interesting ones most of the time.

More importantly - society has never survived on legal obligation alone.

I do not think you would enjoy living in a world where legal obligation is the only thing that mattered.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#88

Post by a10c »

znpy wrote: post #33
weinzierl wrote: post #4

Not a full replacement but there is Garage, which was quite well received in other HN threads. https://git.deuxfleurs.fr/Deuxfleurs/garage

Afaik Ceph has its own object-storage functionality as well, which seems to be S3-compatible: https://docs.ceph.com/en/latest/radosgw/#object-gateway

I believe you're forced to have your data backed by a Ceph OSD. Whereas Minio can point to an NFS share on a NAS.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#89

Post by mattbee »

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 going to be.

Even when I set up a minio cluster this February, it was both impressively easy and hard in a few small aspects. The most crucial installation tips - around 100Gb networking, Linux kernel tunables and fault-finding - were hung off comments on their github, talking about files that were deleted from the repository years ago.

I've built a cluster for a client that's being expanded to ≈100PB this year. The price of support comes in at at slightly less than the equivalent amount of S3 storage (not including the actual hosting costs!). The value of it just isn't that high to my client - so I guess we're just coasting on what we can get now, and will have to see what real community might form around the source.

I'm not a free software die-hard so I'm grateful for the work minio have put into the world, and the business it's enabling. But it seems super-clear they're stopping those contributions, and I'd bet the final open source release will happen in the next year.

If anyone else is hosting with minio & can't afford the support either :) please drop me a line and maybe we can get something going.

Re: MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

#90

Post by mlrtime »

DannyBee wrote: post #87
Hendrikto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though. > people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody. > You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images […] is appro…

"That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though." This is true legally, but not otherwise (socially, practically) "That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody." Again, true legally, but IMHO a really silly position to take overall. Imagine I provide free electricity to everyone in my town. I encourage everyone to use it. I do it all for free. I'm very caref…

Bad analogy, MinIO isn't a basic commodity required for life.

Maybe a car analogy (because they hardly work). It's like lending your car to someone everyday then stopping, then the person complains that they have no way to get around. But there is walking, biking, busses or buying your own car.

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