[away271828]

I'm a bit hesitant to describe $NEW_CONCEPT/TECH as just $OLD_CONCEPT/TECH. Echoes of older things in a new context can really amount to something different. Yes, VMware didn't create the idea of virtualization and Docker et al didn't create containerization but the results were pretty novel.

[nine_k]

I'd rather say that good ideas keep on returning, no matter whether they are remembered or getting reinvented.

It's not that those who reapplied the old concept in new circumstances are not innovators; they are! Much like the guy who rearranged the well known thread, needle, and needle eye and invented the sewing machine, completely transforming the whole industry.

But seeing the old idea resurfacing again (and again) in a new form gives you that feeling of a wheel being reinvented, in a newer and usually better form, but still very recognizable.

[xyzzy123]

The plumbing behind Docker is not particularly novel but the porcelain was imho a major advance.

There were plenty of ways to do "containers" (via vservers, jails, zones etc) but the concept of image never caught on before Docker.

You could sling tarballs of chroots around and at times this did happen but it was a sort of sysadmin thing to do, there was no coherent "devex".