[djflutt3rshy]

Would it kill companies to be honest and upfront about these sorts of issues? I feel like "Hey, we're unable to pay our bills unless we can better monetize our product" comes across a lot more honest and trust-worthy than this "We're improving user experience! Trust us!" pride-and-accomplishment nonsense that everyone keeps regurgitating. We're not preschoolers, the Internet can spot marketing slogans a mile away.

[bcheung]

Agreed.

Being dishonest like this is one of the fastest way to lose customers. Please can spot it a mile away.

They should make it optional. Have the email collection form prominently there and ask users if they want to sign up to receive the newsletter, free tutorial, free e-book, whitepapers, etc.

Then also have a "No thanks, take me to the download".

While email to download is fine in most marketing contexts, it is NOT fine for open source products. If they want to collect emails they need to offer something in addition. It doesn't even have to be that much. A free e-book on how to use Docker or something.

The download page could also have a "Please support us by ..." section.

There are so many better ways to go about this.

[sethhochberg]

I think Canonical does a pretty great job of this.

If I download an Ubuntu Server ISO, I get my download immediately, but the page has a nice prompt to register for a whitepaper to get the most out of my new server product.

If I download the Ubuntu Desktop ISO, I still get my download immediately, but additionally I see some nice prompts about donating to support their operations.

Everything about both flows inspires trust that they aren't trying to withhold my download for the sake of selling consulting services or soliciting donations.

[josteink]

> If I download the Ubuntu Desktop ISO, I still get my download immediately

Actually you have to click past a "please donate some money" nagging dialogue.

It may be a little annoying (at least if you download ISOs all the time), but it's obvious what they are asking for, not to mention why.

And it's definitely not dishonest, so it doesn't tarnish their reputation as a trust-worthy company.

[merb]

no they changed it. you click on download now and you can donate money while downloading. (https://imgur.com/a/TMDYaX8)

[WillMoggridge]

It actually just changed (less than 24 hours ago). The download now starts while showing a donation page in the background.

[GlitchMr]

I downloaded Ubuntu about a week ago, the download started while showing a donation page. The change is older than 24 hours ago.

[r3bl]

It's almost as if companies roll out features to a certain percentage of users to test them before rolling them out to everyone.

[buybackoff]

Even MySQL community download has a small link at the bottom "No thanks, just start my download.", but no registration is possible despite two very huge buttons that just scream to sign up or sign in to an Oracle account.

[zaarn]

The MySQL download page is how I ended up with 3 oracle accounts because I always forgot I had one. The small "no thanks just download" button is (was) very deceptive.

[buybackoff]

Same. At some point the link was very small and almost invisible.

[ryanmcdonough]

Have you donated or signed up for those white papers so far? If so how many times/how much?

[keithpeter]

Desktop end user: I donated to Ubuntu, and to Debian via SPI, and a bit to OpenBSD when they had their funding wobble. Since 2015 I've been using Slackware and bought a DVD subscription (it turns out that the Slackware BDfL wasn't getting much of the income from the sale of the DVDs or merchandise so I donated again recently).

We are talking the price of a hipster coffee per fortnight here, but a few thousand people putting that on a recurring payment adds up.

For organisations like Docker I'm wondering if the RStudio model would be viable? The 'enterprise' subscription is something like $995 a year and can thus be budgeted for &c.

[reitanqild]

I sometimes do.

I also sometimes buy apps even if I'm not really sure I'll keep using them (sometimes just to encourage them to continue),

and keep subscribing to a newspaper even if I don't often read subscriber only content (since they sometimes have some great investigations && I want to support them but don't want to disable Adblock).

What I don't do:

- most monthly subscriptions that isn't payment for an actual service .

[naibafo]

Well they did have mishaps like the Amazon search previously

[nikofeyn]

> If they want to collect emails they need to offer something in addition.

whether i agree with the decision or not, i am confused by this sentiment. aren’t they offering docker, for free?

[sethhochberg]

They're indeed giving away Docker for free, but part of the reason I hypothetically want Docker in the first place is that I trust the people distributing it to not do anything underhanded with their flagship tool's position as a product which runs thousands of other businesses' infrastructure.

There is a certain degree of trust involved in using a product like Docker since it is so critical to a businesses' operations, and I think a lot of people feel like using any kind of tracking (like mandatory registration to download) erodes that trust - we're forced to sit here and wonder what other restrictions might come in the future, or what other information they might start requiring for use of their product... and uncertainty never pairs well with infrastructure tooling that tends to be very important and very longlived within an organization.

[kevin_thibedeau]

So you have a complete attitude of entitlement that your preferred software must be delivered to you on your terms according to common convention. Nobody is permitted to act otherwise or we're gonna have ESR storm their office and take names. You're not a Berkeley grad are you?

[dang]

Would you please not argue uncivilly like this on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[msla]

Are we having database problems here?

[rcoveson]

Your thinly-veiled derision doesn't mask the fact that you are being willfully ignorant of the intent of the person you're replying to. You're not here from Reddit, are you?

It's not about entitlement, but it is about common convention. Docker's offering isn't unique enough for them to betray that convention.

The point of making something open source is to benefit from collaboration. Is not making the argument, "locking software distributions behind a login wall is harmful," simply a form of collaboration?

[dang]

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. Your comment would be fine without the first paragraph.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[sbr464]

Does offering the source not qualify as offering something? What is the closed source company offering that you are ok with giving your email away?

Really an honest question. I find Docker useful, and was put back also by the email/ login request, but why are they getting so much hate, compared to every other company, just because of this?

[marcus_holmes]

Because a closed-source company is open about being a for-profit commercial entity that is trying to make a dollar first and foremost.

Docker is "revolutionising infrastructure" or something. It doesn't have "make heaps of money" as it's primary goal. Partly this is because open source. There's an expectation that open source is also "for the greater good".

The cardinal sin of our times is hypocrisy. Being a money-worshiping greedy capitalist bastard is fine, as long as you're open that that's what you are. Pretending to be altruistic while actually being greedy will generate all the hate.

[Scarblac]

But it's not one or the other. It's perfectly legitimate to start a company with the goal of improving the world, while also needing to make some profit so you can continue to be a functioning company. No greed or bastards involved.

[sbr464]

What does being open source and being altruistic have to do with each other? Personally, I think they enabled the login, so that new users would be able to use docker cloud, after installing docker, without needing to create an account. But still, being open source, allows you to verify security, be transparent about the product design/intentions, possibly extend or customize for your needs, etc. There is a lot of value there, that shouldn’t warrant so much hate.

[callalex]

> What does open source and being altruistic have to do with each other?

Would you spend time out of your day to contribute to software that requires your users to sign up for someone else’s spam list?

[sbr464]

You may not feel this way, but think of downloading docker, as a non developer. You are probably following some tutorial, and really have no idea what you are actually doing. What if a container you are downloading is dangerous, or becomes dangerous. What if the version of the platform you have eventually becomes risky, due to a hack/0day? You are basically downloading an entire OS/execution environment, that makes it seamless to run an entire environment, while doing nothing. How would the company send an email/warn you etc, of some basic info that could really help you, or make your experience better? This isn’t som H&M mailing list to take your money. This is real, marketing aside, maybe they actually care?

[sbr464]

Yes, absolutely. Would you like the cure to cancer if it meant you had to give your email address? One thing has nothing to do with the other.

[jpic]

I think contributors are going to compile it from source, to contribute ?

[some_account]

Force users to create an account, then advertise it as "now you don't need to create an account anymore"

Yeah...

[eeZah7Ux]

> What does being open source and being altruistic have to do with each other?

The "open" in "open source" is about encouraging cooperation and collaboration. And not using lock-in or patents or walled gardens to obstruct competition.

If the altruistic aspect is still not obvious: many projects encourage a gift economy by accepting donations.

Astroturfing is really not compatible with what you called "be transparent about the product design/intentions"

[sbr464]

I would only ask someone being so harsh, what they have personally contributed as a project directly or indirectly (supporting an existing project) before being as harsh or judge mental as this, especially toward a product like docker, that probably revolutionalized an industry. To clarify, I mean popularized an entire paradigm of running software, not necessarily the first.

[marcus_holmes]

I agree. There's nothing intrinsic to Open Source that means "for the greater good". And Open Source is beneficial even when done by greedy corporate bastards. There's even an argument that by crowdsourcing pull requests for free, an Open Source company is actively being greedy and capitalist.

However, the kind of mindset that enjoys being a greedy capitalist bastard finds it very very hard to accept the Open Source philosophy - it's all fear-based, "do unto others before they do unto you" and so "if they can rip my code off, they will", because that's what they'd do. I've experienced way too many hard conversations about open-sourcing code with this type of person.

So there tends to be a correlation between Open Source software and a co-operative mindset that would find this type of coercive marketing bullshit to be evil and reject it. This correlation becomes an expectation.

[manigandham]

None of that is related, proven by the simple fact that Docker and other open-source for-profit companies exist and have already contributed significantly to the industry.

This was a bad marketing-driven move, but that's all it is.

[mikekchar]

IMHO Free software done right: http://onehouronelife.com/ (except the call to action is below the fold :-P)

Warning: past the home page, there is some possibly NSFW content. The game defaults to having some cartoon nudity (although there is a non-nudity mod) when the players haven't made clothes, so you might see some pictures of that if you dig around.

It's a game. He puts all the code (and assets) in the public domain. You can go to github and download it and build it for free if you want. But on the website: $20 please. He tells you exactly what you get: lifetime server account, all future updates, full source code, tech support.

Although the forum is not exactly a haven of mature discussion (in fact, it's downright awful at times), I've not even seen one complaint that "I could have got it for free". In fact, there have been several discussions where people say, "$20 is too high. Is there any way to get a discount?" and the reply is "You can download the code for free and play on these free servers". Inevitably the person says, "But I want the official version. I guess I'll pay the $20".

No idea how much money he's made so far, but for a 1 person indy game, he's done astonishingly well: https://onehouronelife.com/newsPage.php?postID=377 (description of sales in the first 2 weeks last March). According to other posts he's made in the forum (which I can't find), sales have continued to be brisk.

If you want to charge for downloading the official build of free software, then do it. Even the FSF will cheer you on (as long as you include source code ;-) ).

[crtasm]

> although there is a non-nudity mod

I love this, never occurred to me that people might mod nudity out of a game instead of into it.

[Tomte]

The game sounded very interesting, until I read a bit in the forums.

Some players are really toxic. Twitter is a peaceful, loving place compared to that. No way I will spend my free time in this game.

[mikekchar]

The game itself is really fun and griefers are much rarer than you might imagine from reading the forums. But yeah.... It's absolutely nuts there sometimes. The developer is a massive free speech advocate and doesn't mind hosting this horrible crap. But what's insane is that he gives moderator ability to some of the worst offenders. So I just don't know what's going on in his head sometimes.

There used to be a list of alternative servers, but seems to be gone now :-( Possibly nobody is hosting one any more. I'm tempted to do it myself, but I'm in Japan so the lag would be unacceptable anyway (I'd be playing by myself, which I do anyway...) But it's an option. If you can find a group of people to play with, it can be quite fun just to run on your own server. It takes very little CPU from my experience.

[baud147258]

It's the issue with discussion platforms where the speech is not regulated, they tend to bring people that have been kicked out of other platforms, even if they are not really interested in the main focus of the forum.

[latexr]

Paradox of Tolerance[1]:

> The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[mrec]

Which in practice just means that everyone labels anything they don't like "intolerance", bans it and toddles off congratulating themselves on how tolerant they are.

I have no idea what the solution is. I suspect anyone coming up with one would win all the Nobel Peace Prizes from now until the end of time. I do think it's a useful rule of thumb that if you're not finding tolerance excruciating and infuriating at times, you're not really doing it.

[thatspartan]

This has helped me to view the GNU GPL in a new light. That is, to ensure freedom, we curtail the freedom to limit the freedom of others with respect to software.

[mrec]

> The moral of the story is: if you’re against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.

Source: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative...

[baud147258]

Thank you for the link, the article was an interesting read.

[mixermachine]

Then take a AWS free Virtual Machine and host it :). Just check the traffic regularly (because only 15GB outgoing traffic is free, incoming does not cost anything. You can set a alarm for 1 USD).

[namibj]

Or get the smallest instance from scaleway, which is so far the smallest one with a dedicated hardware core (not thread) on reasonably modern chips at 2 EUR ~ 2.5$/month, unmetered 100Mbit, 1GB ram and some 25GB fast ssd. If you know any cheaper ones, let me know. They even have 3$/month bare-metal ones with slightly higher specs, but using a Marvell ARM chip and only supporting exotic NBD storage.

Heck, if you'd be fine with an EU server, contact me, I'd sponsor it, including a short subdomain.

[justinclift]

As a data point, we've recently moved our (sqlitebrowser.org) downloads from GitHub to 2 of those 3.99EU/month ARM servers (ARM64-2GB).

People are downloading just over 30GB/day (each weekday) per server, and the servers only seem very lightly loaded.

If the source for whatever runs the needed forums can work on ARM64, then these cheapo servers seem pretty decent so far. :)

[beaconstudios]

interestingly, the game itself has anti-griefing features built in. Communication is limited until your character has survived quite a while and until you're grown up you're completely dependent on the help of other players who are already at the adult stage. If you die due to a negligent mother, you're back very quickly. If you get a griefer child, it's your call whether to feed them.

the game overall has some very interesting features around community and cooperation, and rogue griefers are disincentivised against because the way the game scales seems to inherently require cooperation between strangers.

[swebs]

Neat, that makes me want to check it out. I'm pretty tired of communities that are so busy virtue signaling what is "toxic" that actual discussion is hindered. Those types of communities tend to be overly ban-happy to anyone who speaks against the views of the mods/admins too.

[thecatspaw]

While I did not check out this games forum, there is a massive difference between allowing differentiated views, and toxic people.

Hackernews is pretty good at this, very seldom I see toxic people here, yet people argue all the time when they dont agree.

This actually makes me curios, what draws you to this heavily moderated forum here?

[Tomte]

If you consider „you‘re a fascist“ and „seek psychological help“ in umpteen variations a fruitful discussion, that forum will be exactly your taste.

It was the first or second thread I skimmed. No, thanks.

[folkrav]

Out of context from the rest of your post, but about this "below the fold" thing... The page is fugly and horrible, but the links are interesting reads.

http://abovethefold.fyi/

[ethbro]

For reference and so people can be outraged without RTFA, here was the original close comment:

-- joaofnfernandes (2 months ago)

"I know that this can feel like a nuisance, but we've made this change to make sure we can improve the Docker for Mac and Windows experience for users moving forward.

As far as I can tell, the docs don't need changes, so I'll close this issue, but feel free to comment."

[TylerE]

Has there ever been a change to "improve user experience" that has _actually_ improved user experience? (Looking at you, Google.)

[Deimorz]

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2017/12/07/improvements/

"In our quest to improve the service for you, the user, we're making it worse.

It was great before. It's going to be terrible now, but you're going to love the changes.

We asked our investors and they said you're very excited about it being less good, which is great news for you."

[travisjungroth]

A ton! But they just don’t usually call it that.

90% of changes just make things better for the user. 10% make things worse, but they’re obvious and honest and we’re okay with it.

And then 1% is the stuff like this. The Netflix/Qwikster you’re paying less but more debacle. The EA “sense of pride and accomplishment”. The Netflix (wait, why are they here twice?) show recommendations that aren’t ads that’s happening right now.

[pluma]

Or Amazon's "Prime costs more now but it also includes Amazon Video which was so popular we couldn't get anyone to pay for it extra".

[Accacin]

I recently noticed that Amazon Prime in the UK has Parks and Recreation AND Seinfeld, which Netflix doesn't have.

Worth it!

[ethbro]

Amazon Prime seems like it pulled out the checkbook for syndicated series. It's also got a lot of old HBO stuff.

Which makes sense if you've got a pile of money but are trying to bootstrap a streaming service.

I expect most of that will disappear when it comes up for renewal and they've built out their original content (in the same way it did for Netflix).

[ThisIs_MyName]

> The Netflix/Qwikster you’re paying less but more debacle

What did I miss?

[MarkyC4]

7 years ago, Netflix decided to split into streaming (Netflix) and DVDs by mail (Qwikster). It didn't last long

[zwily]

It sort of did... The DVD portion of Netflix is now at dvd.com.

[karlshea]

but feel free to comment.

i.e. "We do not give one single fuck what you think about this decision, and will not be reading any of your replies."

[imglorp]

What's next?

Opt-out phone-home, telemetry, crash reporting, quality analytics, whatever you call it. That's my prediction.

My Synology personal file server started nagging about enabling telemetry and needing a privacy notice to store my files on my drive on my network. Screw that.

[peterkelly]

Even Wacom tablet drivers phone home now: https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/7zzq8p/you_should_kn...

[egypturnash]

Sweet mother of fucker, thanks for mentioning that. I use my Wacom tablet for pretty much EVERYTHING when it’s connected. Turned that shit right off.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

I struggled to upgrade my graphics card drivers on an old gaming PC just the other day because I'd forgotten my "GeForce Experience" password and had to reset it.

[Accacin]

My thoughts exactly. What a weird turn of events when it's easier to install Nvidia drivers on Linux using your distro's package manager than it is on Windows!

[dnzm]

To be fair, it is possible to download the drivers without the experience bullshit.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

Gosh! How is this even legal?! Thank you for mentioning that.

[pluma]

At least thanks to GDPR these companies now have to tell you and (in some cases) explicitly request your specific consent, rather than just doing it behind your back.

[drdeadringer]

I use a Synology personal server, but an older one. I have been considering upgrading to a more modern version. Do you remember about when this nagging began? Was it related to a firmware upgrade or was it "right out of the box"?

[proactivesvcs]

I think I first saw it after installing DSM 6.2

[tw04]

It's literally a one time prompt. I think calling it nagging is a bit extreme.

[a254613e]

At least for me the prompt isn't a one time thing, unless you consent to enabling telemetry. I get asked whether I want to enable it all the time when logging in.

[imglorp]

Yes, you can disable it forever [1]. Oh and there's actually a tiny "skip" on the nag screen in dull contrast, more user hostility. It's the concept I object to, though: If I pay for it, I should not be the product. And a privacy notice on something that's by definition supposed to be private.

1. Control Panel -> Info -> Device Analytics.

https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/8mdioc/device_ana...

[Fnoord]

Docker already got (some) of that. They tell you at the end of the installation. You need to manually find it in the Settings and opt out of it.

As for Synology, I did opt out of that as well.

It'd be great if this crap was opt in... since the industry doesn't agree, I propose we make it law.

[goliatone]

I thought in EU that was the case

[coredog64]

> What's next?

Docker being purchased by Oracle and then users being subject to audits for the audacity of running Docker.

[justinclift]

Just as a data point, FreeNAS (freenas.org) is pretty decent if you're ok with building your own storage box. :)

[Fnoord]

If you like the Synology software stack you can also use XPenology which is pretty much DSM but then for non-Synology devices. Linux-based, so btrfs instead of ZFS.

[MBCook]

No kidding. “Improve the user experience“ is incredibly nebulous and non-obvious. IF there is actually a benefit to this why not just list it?

We all know why. There isn’t a benefit to the end-user.

[gameswithgo]

as soon as you see nonsense business speak like that you know things are going downhill.

see also, netflix, and twitter lately.

I really don't know why they bother uttering or writing those kinds of words. They contain no information, nobody is fooled by the lie. It is a waste of their time.

[sopooneo]

I thought the same way until I worked with lots of types of people. The vast majority seem to much prefer BS, even blatant BS to honesty that is even the least bit blunt. I think part of it is that since everyone exaggerates, actual blunt truths are assumed to also be a positive spin, which would put their reality in the toilet.

[mistrial9]

I disagree -- it is a soporific effect, not a preference. You are essentially blaming the victim here, and that is complicit

[shoulderfake]

Majority of people out there are complete idiots, Im not trying to be rude either. Very few people think for themselves.

[balladeer]

I wouldn't call them idiots. They just are not as exposed to the concept of online privacy as a lot of us are.

We might be on the other side of table in many other ways, or idiots as you put it. Like the way my doctor friends avoid some OTC drugs that I never even think twice before taking, or some food, or some ready made edibles. I have a friend in textile industry and when he buys clothes it's a whole new level and makes me wonder what the hell I have been wearing so far. It amazes me how he sees through all those "Giza cotton" tag-lines and gimmick features of breathability and what not that are usually followed by a (™).

Can we all not learn everything from The Internet? No, we can't and it does not make any of us an idiot.

[dang]

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[darkst4r]

Hard truth

[HelloNurse]

A presumably open source software is held to a higher standard than such marketing-oriented enterprises.

[spullara]

Docker Swarm logs to segment.io, not sure about the other products.

[sandGorgon]

you can use logspout to send docker logs anywhere

[marksomnian]

Not that type of logging. GP is talking about Docker Engine's telemetry/analytics.

[imgabe]

And moreso, if you want to make money just charge money for something. Don't do scumbag stuff like collect emails to sell to marketers. Make something people are willing to pay for, and charge them money for it.

[fpgaminer]

Doesn't Docker have Docker Enterprise or something like that that they charge money for? So the email harvesting is really just in addition to charging money.

[throwawaymath]

The harvested emails are used (among other things) for lead generation for Docker Enterprise.

[HelloNurse]

This is a socially acceptable reason to collect emails, and it should be openly labeled as "do you want to receive information about Docker products and services?" or the like, like non-annoying companies do.

[lainga]

The metamorphosis from startup to company is complete. The people who would have been straightforward with you have been replaced by endemic office-dwellers.

[nickjj]

In Docker's defense they don't really barrage you with marketing. This isn't a situation where if you create an account you're going to get emailed every day about "5 tips on moving your Enterprise application to Docker!".

I've had a Docker Hub account since Docker Hub was a thing and the only content I really ever get from Docker is a weekly newsletter (which you can opt out of) and notifications about the platform itself (such as any downtime reports, etc.).

I do think it's a bad idea though, mainly because for newer people getting into Docker it's a barrier of entry to overcome. I'm very suspicious of anyone asking me to register for things like this. On the other hand, I don't have insights that Docker has, so to make such a bold move, they probably have a plan.

[bluejay2387]

Yes, I am sure they suddenly added a login requirement to the download process because they plan to NOT use it for expanding their marketing pushes...

[leothelocust]

> In Docker's defense they don't really barrage you with marketing.

Although they may not barrage you now, there is no telling what the future holds with stunts like this.

[nickjj]

> Although they may not barrage you now, there is no telling what the future holds with stunts like this.

I think the future is pretty predictable.

In the off chance they just wake up and start slamming you with unsolicited marketing then you can click unsubscribe in the footer of their email and you'll never see another email from Docker again.

But really, I don't think Docker is foolish enough to do that. They've spent a lot of years building up their brand and business, and aren't reckless enough to put all of that at risk by relentlessly emailing their users with marketing agendas (if that's what they wanted to do they could have been doing that for years).

Docker already knows that almost everyone uses the free community edition anyways, so they really have nothing to sell to us anyways, except for maybe Docker Hub private repo access. Anyone who already downloads Docker already knows the benefits of using Docker, so they don't need to sell us on Docker as a technology. What are they going to market to us?

Lastly, let's not forget that the Docker for Windows / Mac clients have allowed you to login to the Docker Hub for a long time now and nothing bad has came from that (unexpected marketing attempts).

[msla]

> In the off chance they just wake up and start slamming you with unsolicited marketing then you can click unsubscribe in the footer of their email and you'll never see another email from Docker again.

No, you see tons of email from everyone Docker sold your "Guaranteed Live And Active" email address to, once it verified liveness and activity by you clicking the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email. And that's assuming Docker doesn't just keep spamming you, secure in the knowledge you're reading their earnest missives and care enough to respond to them personally and by hand.

> But really, I don't think Docker is foolish enough to do that. They've spent a lot of years building up their brand and business, and aren't reckless enough to put all of that at risk by relentlessly emailing their users with marketing agendas (if that's what they wanted to do they could have been doing that for years).

If they're suddenly in a different financial position, or change leadership, or for any of a number of different reasons, they could indeed go off a cliff like that.

[Myrmornis]

Agreed. It is extraordinary that intelligent, honest, discourse is so rarely employed when companies explain things like this. Why MBAs, sales and business types find it so hard to understand how appalling intelligent people find this style of discourse baffles me. Surely many MBAs, sales and business types are intelligent and empathetic people?

[zambal]

To me this seems to be a 'when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail' type of issue, in the sense that they try to apply PR and marketing tactics from mass marketed consumer products to a niche product for professionals.

[blt]

probably not. in my experience those fields tend to attract people who either a) only care about money, or b) get a kick out of manipulating people.

[brightball]

Stuff like this makes me feel better about focusing on Ansible Container instead of Docker. You can use it to create multiple different types of containers without being married to Docker itself.

[Poiesis]

The readme used to say that ansible-container was no longer in active development (https://github.com/ansible/ansible-container/commit/2fa778a7...), but it appears to not be the case now.

[justinclift]

The follow up commit, which removes that:

https://github.com/ansible/ansible-container/commit/e25bd665...

[ChristianGeek]

Is this a viable alternative to Docker? I’m about to launch a fairly large new project and had planned on going with Docker but this definitely causes me concern.

[takeda]

IMO docker is a dead end, it essentially ended up being a glorified ZIP file, the real solution what docker was trying to do (reproducibility) is what Nix does, and if Nix is not a solution then something in that direction.

In nix, you're basically describing the whole dependency tree of your application all the way to libc. When you build your application it builds everything necessary to run it.

The great thing about it is that your CDE essentially is identical to your build system, and the builds are fully reproducible, it takes over being a build system, package manager and as mentioned CDE.

They went even further with that (I have not explored that myself yet) and used the language to describe the entire system (called NixOS) which looks like CMS is no longer necessary and also nix is used for deployment (NixOps, also did not tried it)

If you are into containers you can still deploy into systemd lxc containers, or even create a minimalistic docker image.

The disadvantage is that there is a significant learning curve, it's a new language, and it is a functional, lazily evaluated language. The language is not really that hard, but many people are not used to functional programming. It is especially popular for deployment of Haskell code, since the language is also functional and lazily evaluated.

[cverna]

A good alternative to Docker is podman the cli built on top of libpod (https://github.com/containers/libpod). It has the same api than docker but lets run build and run containers without the need to have root permission.

[tobbyb]

You can try LXC containers by Ubuntu, this is what Docker was based on initially. The main difference is LXC runs an init in the container so you get a standard multi process OS environment while Docker containers are single process environments.

We have been working on Flockport [1] that supports LXC containers and provides orchestration, an app store, service discovery and repeatable builds. It's still in early preview and we have not started proper outreach but it may be worth looking at.

Ubuntu also provides the LXD project that provides some orchestration across servers.

[1] https://www.flockport.com

[justinclift]

As a data point, Docker itself - in Swarm mode - doesn't yet do IPv6 to any decent level natively.

It's seems possible to get IPv6 working through alternative orchestration though. eg Theres a guide on getting it working with Kubernetes and Calico.

But if you're looking for something that's production grade IPv6 - eg people can work out WTF is wrong when problems hit - it's probably not there yet. At least, not for small teams that I can tell. ;)

[johnny22]

something like this might be https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/daemon-haunted-container-worl... I'm posting the PR link rather than the projects since the I'm not sure what the intended CLI for actually using the container is.

[brightball]

It just lets you abstract the container. You can use it to build docker or LXC, etc. if a new container comes out you will be able to build that too.

[Rjevski]

rkt ?

https://coreos.com/rkt/

[theyinwhy]

> First, Ansible Container builds its Conductor container. This may involve pulling the Conductor base image from the Docker Hub registry.

Sounds pretty married to me.

See https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-container/getting_started.h...

[brightball]

That could be pulled from anywhere. If the only marriage is the origin source of the base image, it will be a quickie divorce.

[neya]

It's not just the dishonesty, but the way the github issue was closed just like that after just providing an improper, half-assed solution that still doesn't address the core problem.

[scrollaway]

> Would it kill companies to be honest and upfront about these sorts of issues? I feel like "Hey, we're unable to pay our bills unless we can better monetize our product" comes across a lot more honest and trust-worthy than this

The problem is that it's almost never that.

It's not "we're unable to pay our bills". It's "we've got more money than we need already, but we think we could get a lot more this way".

You think, say, Netflix is a struggling business and that's why they have to put more ads than before? No. In a capitalist system, leaving money off the table is increasingly unjustifiable as the number you're leaving off grows. Docker absolutely is in that same situation.

[TheGrumpyBrit]

Exactly. The reasoning behind this decision is obvious:

"Hey, look at all these downloads CE is getting. We need to start following up with these users to try and promote Enterprise and other products. Start capturing emails at the point of download."

[jugg1es]

Yea, it's like when the auto mechanic says its "unsafe" to not replace your brake rotors when you change your pads and that he won't replace your breaks unless you pay for rotors too. Just say that the job is too small to be worth it unless you replace the rotors.

[chris_wot]

It's not even good spin. How, precisely, does it help improve the user experience?

[xg15]

I think this is one of the core problems of the internet economy at large. We've build a huge ecosystem of services basically on the conditions:

1) Users think they are free

2) They are not actually free

The result is of course stuff like this.

[WalterSear]

Probably.

[atopuzov]

Haven't seen an honest manager (yet) that would approve something like that.

[jcroll]

Does the internet always have to throw a fit every time a company tries to add a little monetization to what is an essentially free service?

[hellosputnik]

The internet does not always throw a fit every time a company tries to add a little monetization to what is an essentially free service.

The community is expressing a desire for companies to be be honest and upfront about these sorts of issues (i.e., monetization). Refer to the post you responded to for more information.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

We should throw a fit everytime they lie about it, yes

[ckocagil]

Docker isn't a service. It's an easily replaceable software that is dominant due to the network effect. All the hard work was done by the Linux kernel before Docker existed.

[TAForObvReasons]

Do companies always have to gaslight users by suggesting that ads, trackers, malware and other features are "user-enhancing"? Monetization is OK, and in fact is a good thing in many cases, but trying to couch it in BS irritates many people.

[lagadu]

The internet doesn't care about companies trying to improve their revenues, particularly when it comes to "free" products. It does care about a great deal when it's lied to.

[gameswithgo]

It is the lying we throw a fit about, mostly. Personally though I would MUCH prefer to actually pay for things than to have free things "monetized".

[ionised]

I love how you have totally missed the point.

[scarejunba]

Haha yes. The truth is that every critic of your service will do that if you monetize. It's definitely one key thing to take care of when you try to switch to generating money. You need to have a good story around how you're doing it.

The guys who act like "it's only about the lies" are usually not decision makers, but it's important to be able to have enough a story that the decision makers don't get their thoughts contaminated by the perennially negative.

I think Docker will be fine with what they're doing. This is a storm in a teacup. But they should've bundled it with other features like auto-updates or something.