[bayindirh]

From my understanding, Docker is moving to become an open to (proprietary) enterprise packager for closed source, or paid for software development.

- Keep access to big, permissively licensed open source software.

- Charge for higher pulling limits and tools.

- Keep source open, but infra closed, hence converting whole infra to "source available".

- Keep "small open source fish" out of the pond, by charging for what's available on the hub/platform.

As a result, they are kinda becoming "Snap Store" of containers. Premium feel, high fees for higher bar for entry, etc.

At the end of the day, Docker is just a hungry whale chasing money. I can't blame them, but they are not motivated by the value they provide anymore. They are motivated by the money they can make.

Sad, but understandable (to a degree). This makes them very easy to disrupt in free software arena. I'm a paying Docker Pro customer, but I might look somewhere else in the long run.

[hosh]

Interesting, "snap store of containers" sounds plausible. Seems like a decent business model, but also, one that is not really committed to the open source ecosystem.

To go back to the question that started this out -- should we be worried about having image dependencies pulled out all of the sudden? It sounds like, if it is a large open source project, probably not so soon. That includes the `library` repos.

Any smaller project should be vendored if they are still sticking to Docker Hub.

[bayindirh]

I don't think that Docker has an interest to be committed to the open source ecosystem anymore.

They're playing the long game. They standardized container format, completed the reference implementation, gave it as open source and implicitly told everyone "they have done their part, the infra is not under their monopoly, so they're free of the burden".

Due to experience, I'm wary of the infrastructure which I can't build/rebuild. So, anything above Linux distribution + the package repositories needs to be buildable from scratch. As a result, I don't use ready-made app containers unless I have to.

I pull a distribution container and configure it to my liking, and build my own containers. Moreover, if I use the container more than two times, I publish its Dockerfile publicly, so anyone can build it from scratch if they want to. This allows me to get my hands dirty and pivot and rebuild pretty quickly if companies pull things like that.

Containers are great, but not knowing how to work without them, or not knowing how to make one is taking great toll as companies pivot to proprietary/money first models more and more.

Maybe being open and being closed just a cycle, and we're moving to other half of the period?

[WastingMyTime89]

Did Docker standardise the container format?

I always was under the impression that they had great marketing but were mostly capitalising on tech built by other (mostly Google to be honest) which failed to properly market them.

[intelVISA]

Sage insight, definitely looking forward to disrupting them in the near future :)