[Moto7451]

One thing that really hurt them from my PoV was how they acted when they changed their licensing structure with respect to revenue generating companies. I’m fine with the idea that licensing Docker and Docker Desktop is a good thing to do. However, I think they just made people distrust their motives with their approached to this.

At two places I worked their reps reached out to essentially ensnare the company in a sort of “gotcha” scheme where if we were running the version of Docker Desktop after the commercial licensing requirement change, they sent a 30 day notice to license the product or they’d sue. Due to the usual “mid size software company not micromanaging the developers” standard, we had a few people on a new enough version that it would trigger the new license terms and we were in violation. They didn’t seem to do much outreach other than threatening us.

So in each case we switched to Rancher Desktop.

The licensing cost wasn’t that high, but it was hard to take them in good faith after their approach.

[someone7x]

> they sent a 30 day notice to license the product or they’d sue

This tracks with what I saw, one day there was an email sent out to make sure you don’t have docker desktop installed.

It was wild because we were on the heels of containerize-all-th-things push and now we’re winding down docker?? Sure whatever you say boss.

[bullonabender]

Same here. The rug pull was not received well by our teams. The messaging was terrible. Some still joke it was a like a stick up. "Pulling a docker" has now become internal slang for firms that let you use/build for years and then ransom you later. We pivoted just after too. They also tagged my personal accounts which had nothing to do with my day job.

[dangus]

They basically made the case for podman existing, and I see podman gaining steam and being easier and easier to drop in as a replacement for Docker.

If they never changed that licensing, nobody would have had an incentive to put big effort into an alternative.

I think the hosted Docker registry should have been their first revenue source and then they should have created more closed source enterprise workflow solutions and hosted services that complement the docker tooling that remained truly open source, including desktop.

[steve1977]

So they have become Oracle...

[Someone]

> if we were running the version of Docker Desktop after the commercial licensing requirement change, they sent a 30 day notice to license the product or they’d sue.

What exactly are you objecting to? Since you say “I’m fine with the idea that licensing Docker and Docker Desktop is a good thing to do” it’s not the change, so what is it? The 30 days, them saying they would sue after that, or the tone?

I haven’t seen the messages so I cannot comment on that, but if you accept that the licensing can be changed, whats wrong with writing offenders to remind them to either stop using the product or start paying? And what’s wrong with giving them 30 days, since, in my memory, they announced the licensing change months in advance?

[dec0dedab0de]

It's rude behavior, and generally not a good way to start a business relationship.

It reminds me of someone handing me something on the street then asking me to pay for it, whenever they do that I just throw whatever it is as far as I can and keep walking.

[Moto7451]

I don’t object to licensing software. It’s the way they went about it. Individual EMs and ICs being targeted and intimidated vs going through a procurement/legal channel. The companies I’ve worked for have staff lawyers for a reason. If they have a legal objection they should take it up with them. Not someone trying to work through a React bug.

[saghm]

Normally people who want to sell something don't start out right off the bat with the threat of a lawsuit

[b40d-48b2-979e]

    Due to the usual “mid size software company not micromanaging the developers”
    standard

You didn't have a device management system or similar product managing software installs (SCCM in Windows land)? That's table stakes for any admin.

[Moto7451]

I believe you’re using royal-you but just to be clear I didn’t run these companies.

At one place there wasn’t and at the other it wasn’t well managed. I agree from a compliance point of view and have advocated for this but I was not on the IT/Ops side of the business so I could only use soft power.

The CTO at the first company had a “zero hindrances for the developers” mindset and the latter was reeling from being the merger of five different companies. The latter did a better job of trying to say the least but wasn’t great about it. Outcome was the same none the less.

[jabroni_salad]

I mainly consult but we have a few managed clients that are dev houses too. We do their employee onboarding, wrangle their licensing, keep them updated, give them a self service storefront for commercial software that they pay for, add SSO integrations for them etc. Basically they wanted to do NoOps but also didnt want to have to procure or configure their equipment.

But outside of 'make sure the oracle lawyers never contact us' they dont want us policing them and they are admins on their own devices. For a lot of businesses their computer network has separate production and business zones and the production zone is a YOLO type situation.

[coredog64]

Amazon has device management but still allows developers to install software via `brew`. Windows is slightly more locked down in that user's don't have admin by default, but there's a very low bar to clear to get it temporarily.

[b40d-48b2-979e]

Brew also has workbrew which gives the admin control of the repository. There's also JAMF on macos. None of these systems must give developers free reign to violate software licenses.

[dangus]

Device management != micromanaging developer workflow.

At my midsize company, our engineers could absolutely say something like “we don’t like Terraform Cloud, we want to switch to OpenTofu and env0” and our management would be okay with it and make it happen as long as we justify the change.

We wouldn’t even really have to ask permission if the change was no cost.

[ajcp]

-> and make it happen.

I think OPs point is they failed on this part. "Making it happen" should have been ensuring a compliant and approved version of the software was the one made available to the developers. At a large scale that is done via device management, but even at a medium sized enterprise that should have been done via a source management portal of some sort.

[Moto7451]

Yup, exactly that. The situation shouldn’t have even happened in the first place but sometimes that’s just how it goes.

I’ve consulted at some places that should have been licensing Dicker Desktop and I just skipped the workflow headaches and used Rancher from the start with the compatibility aliases installed. A lot of places are simply unaware.