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One of Docker's biggest problems is that internally they have fomented a culture of "users are stupid" which is immediately apparent if you interact with their

One of Docker's biggest problems is that internally they have fomented a culture of "users are stupid" which is immediately apparent if you interact with their developers on GitHub.

StreamBright 10y ago
This is pretty dangerous path to failure. If you look at the most successful companies it is obvious that they respect the user base using their service. Software is no exception to that, you have to make it user friendly, regardless if your user base is mostly software and systems engineers.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I don't think it's so cut-and-dry. I mean, does Oracle respect its users and is it user-friendly? What about Epic, the dominant software system in the healthcare industry? Or Microsoft SharePoint?
  - ghufran_syed 10y ago
    "If you look at the most successful companies it is obvious that they respect the user base using their service" - I think a better way of putting it would be that "successful companies respect their customers". In the case of software tools like Docker, the customers generally are the users. In the case of Epic, an electronic health record, the buyers are senior management, the users are the clinical staff such as the nurses, doctors and techs. So Epic does give the senior management what they want (buzzword compliance, a safe choice that it's hard to get fired for), but doesn't give clinical staff what they want..because they are not the ones making the buying decision.
  - StreamBright 10y ago
    Most, not all. I think you are still better of listening to your customers.
danielrhodes 10y ago
I've also had such an experience. Same with Realm.io. The developers get very dismissive with just about anybody who comes in saying they have a use case which doesn't fit the scope of what already exists. Meanwhile features/fixes sit on the backlog for years. I'm not saying this will necessarily stop me from using a project, but it definitely does not create any loyalty. Compare this to say Rails, where I've had really positive experiences with the maintainers.
hosh 10y ago
They more or less ignored the file sync issue of Docker for Mac, until there was a push asking the Docker devs for more transparency. There were other issues with the release, and where people did not push for it, issues would languish with no one from the dev team saying anything. It sometimes feels like a culture of coverups and shame. (Let's hide this under here and maybe no one will notice). If people are feeling the "users are stupid", combined with what looks like coverup culture, I find Docker's blog posts less and less credible. For example, there was a recent blog post about An independent security review comparing Docker to other similar technologies, including rkt. The conclusion of the post was that Docker is secure by default. (I'll leave it to the reader's own opinion whether that is true or not; this is not the issue I am pointing out). What is so weird is that, nearly two years after the fact, the tone in that blog post was still as if CoreOS had betrayed them. And while I get there are hurt feelings involved, this is not a high school popularity contest. When combined with arrogance and coverup culture, I can see Docker moving in a direction that drives them further and further from relevancy. Based on what I'm hearing here about Docker Swarm, Swarm is basically a great advertising for K8S or Mesos. No one there is pretending that multi-node orchestration is an easy problem. If the divergence from the community continues, I can see lots of people fed up and going over to rkt, or something else that works just as well.
- shabble 10y ago
  > They more or less ignored the file sync issue of Docker for Mac Which particular problem? The crappy performance/CPU usage one(s), or something else? Having used various different approaches (docker in vmware linux/virtualbox), the d4m (osxfs?) one seemed to be the least broken for general dev stuff. Hopefully not more issues I need to keep a lookout for.
  - hosh 10y ago
    Crappy performance related to the osxfs --latency issues for writes for host volumes. It's getting closer to the latency as Docker for Linux. (I hear though, workarounds like using unisonfs and fswatch works all right) There is also the bit about host networking. Since Docker for Mac runs a transparent Linux, the host networking goes there instead. That thread ended up in a big, roaring silence.
shykes 10y ago
Docker founder here. It makes me sad that you believe that. We're not perfect but we try very hard to keep our users happy. Are there specific issues that you could point out, so that I can get a sense of what you saw that you didn't like? Keep in mind that anyone can participate in github issues, not just Docker employees, and although we have a pretty strict code of conduct, being dismissive about another participant's use case is not grounds for moderation. EDIT: sorry if this came across as dismissive, that wasn't the intention. We regularly get called out for comments made by non-employees, it's a common problem on the github repo.
- moefogs 10y ago
  I'll give you an example: YOUR FUCKING COMMENT HERE. A user says he feels like Docker folks treat users like idiots and you... 1) imply that he's wrong for thinking that ("sad that you believe that"); and 2) then directly state that he's wrong; then 3) add one smart sentence (requesting feedback); but then 4) immediately undermine that by treating the user like an idiot again. So yeah... docker treats users like idiots, because YOU are their leader, and YOU think we're all fucking idiots. None of your employees are going to treat users better than you do, and you can't even apologize and ask for feedback without treating users poorly.
- m0lll 10y ago
  Docker user here. It's hard to believe that Docker thinks much of users when a comment like that results in a founder: - stating that he's "sad we believe that", then claiming that we're wrong for having that belief. - then implying that we're mouth-breathing morons who don't know the difference between a docker employee and other folks on github. If your goal was to confirm that docker is run by assholes who don't think much of their users, then you've accomplished the goal. If your goal was to demonstrate that you care deeply about users, you've failed miserably. If you thought you were demonstrating care, then maybe you're a lousy leader. In fact, that would explain the whole situation.
  - arcticfox 10y ago
    Well, that's an incredibly cynical and negative way to read shykes' words. FWIW, I thought his post was fine. A more constructive response than yours would be to post examples of where Docker has failed in community engagement, rather than just re-stating his post with the most negative spin possible.
bdcravens 10y ago
Won't validate whether this happens with Docker, but I've seen it other places. I won't name names, but I bought a commercial add-on to an open source project very similar to Docker, and when I had a support issue, I was pretty much told "tough luck, not my problem" by the project founder.
- fermigier 10y ago
  Was the "project founder" related to the company that sold you the commercial add-on? If not, why should he support it, unless of course there is some commercial relationship between the open source project and the company selling the add-on?
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    Yes, his company is the one that made the add-on; it was their first commercial product atop the open source project. Today they're a nice fat funded company, but then, they had little revenue, which really put me off.
ldehaan 10y ago
This is such sad entitled crap. It's Free software, as in, you didn't pay for it. Not only that but the other commenters on here are just as enfuriating. I'm not sorry someone made you feel like an idiot, maybe you should try reading more, this system is simple, it's a simple concept, and a simple implementation. It's really too bad you didn't spend the time to learn a system you wanted to implement, it's too bad you didn't read the release notes before you upgraded. This is stuff sysadmins are supposed to do, if you want to work in systems level stuff, learn how it works, don't just run upgrades without reading the release notes for your core technology. Nobody wants to hear this but you need to. Stop treating open source projects like you paid a million dollars for them, they're Free, and yet somehow, like those douche cookies who sue for falling on their ass, people still find a way to make their incompetence someone else's problem. /soapbox
GirlsCanCode 10y ago
Since their users are mostly Ruby and Node people, they probably are. Nobody in the Erlang community uses it.

One of Docker's biggest problems is that internally they have fomented a culture of "users are stupid" which is immediately apparent if you interact with their developers on GitHub.

StreamBright 10y ago

This is pretty dangerous path to failure. If you look at the most successful companies it is obvious that they respect the user base using their service. Software is no exception to that, you have to make it user friendly, regardless if your user base is mostly software and systems engineers.

enraged_camel 10y ago
I don't think it's so cut-and-dry. I mean, does Oracle respect its users and is it user-friendly? What about Epic, the dominant software system in the healthcare industry? Or Microsoft SharePoint?
- ghufran_syed 10y ago
  "If you look at the most successful companies it is obvious that they respect the user base using their service" - I think a better way of putting it would be that "successful companies respect their customers". In the case of software tools like Docker, the customers generally are the users. In the case of Epic, an electronic health record, the buyers are senior management, the users are the clinical staff such as the nurses, doctors and techs. So Epic does give the senior management what they want (buzzword compliance, a safe choice that it's hard to get fired for), but doesn't give clinical staff what they want..because they are not the ones making the buying decision.
- StreamBright 10y ago
  Most, not all. I think you are still better of listening to your customers.

danielrhodes 10y ago

I've also had such an experience. Same with Realm.io. The developers get very dismissive with just about anybody who comes in saying they have a use case which doesn't fit the scope of what already exists. Meanwhile features/fixes sit on the backlog for years. I'm not saying this will necessarily stop me from using a project, but it definitely does not create any loyalty. Compare this to say Rails, where I've had really positive experiences with the maintainers.

hosh 10y ago

They more or less ignored the file sync issue of Docker for Mac, until there was a push asking the Docker devs for more transparency. There were other issues with the release, and where people did not push for it, issues would languish with no one from the dev team saying anything. It sometimes feels like a culture of coverups and shame. (Let's hide this under here and maybe no one will notice). If people are feeling the "users are stupid", combined with what looks like coverup culture, I find Docker's blog posts less and less credible. For example, there was a recent blog post about An independent security review comparing Docker to other similar technologies, including rkt. The conclusion of the post was that Docker is secure by default. (I'll leave it to the reader's own opinion whether that is true or not; this is not the issue I am pointing out). What is so weird is that, nearly two years after the fact, the tone in that blog post was still as if CoreOS had betrayed them. And while I get there are hurt feelings involved, this is not a high school popularity contest. When combined with arrogance and coverup culture, I can see Docker moving in a direction that drives them further and further from relevancy. Based on what I'm hearing here about Docker Swarm, Swarm is basically a great advertising for K8S or Mesos. No one there is pretending that multi-node orchestration is an easy problem. If the divergence from the community continues, I can see lots of people fed up and going over to rkt, or something else that works just as well.

shabble 10y ago
> They more or less ignored the file sync issue of Docker for Mac Which particular problem? The crappy performance/CPU usage one(s), or something else? Having used various different approaches (docker in vmware linux/virtualbox), the d4m (osxfs?) one seemed to be the least broken for general dev stuff. Hopefully not more issues I need to keep a lookout for.
- hosh 10y ago
  Crappy performance related to the osxfs --latency issues for writes for host volumes. It's getting closer to the latency as Docker for Linux. (I hear though, workarounds like using unisonfs and fswatch works all right) There is also the bit about host networking. Since Docker for Mac runs a transparent Linux, the host networking goes there instead. That thread ended up in a big, roaring silence.

shykes 10y ago

Docker founder here. It makes me sad that you believe that. We're not perfect but we try very hard to keep our users happy. Are there specific issues that you could point out, so that I can get a sense of what you saw that you didn't like? Keep in mind that anyone can participate in github issues, not just Docker employees, and although we have a pretty strict code of conduct, being dismissive about another participant's use case is not grounds for moderation. EDIT: sorry if this came across as dismissive, that wasn't the intention. We regularly get called out for comments made by non-employees, it's a common problem on the github repo.

moefogs 10y ago
I'll give you an example: YOUR FUCKING COMMENT HERE. A user says he feels like Docker folks treat users like idiots and you... 1) imply that he's wrong for thinking that ("sad that you believe that"); and 2) then directly state that he's wrong; then 3) add one smart sentence (requesting feedback); but then 4) immediately undermine that by treating the user like an idiot again. So yeah... docker treats users like idiots, because YOU are their leader, and YOU think we're all fucking idiots. None of your employees are going to treat users better than you do, and you can't even apologize and ask for feedback without treating users poorly.
m0lll 10y ago
Docker user here. It's hard to believe that Docker thinks much of users when a comment like that results in a founder: - stating that he's "sad we believe that", then claiming that we're wrong for having that belief. - then implying that we're mouth-breathing morons who don't know the difference between a docker employee and other folks on github. If your goal was to confirm that docker is run by assholes who don't think much of their users, then you've accomplished the goal. If your goal was to demonstrate that you care deeply about users, you've failed miserably. If you thought you were demonstrating care, then maybe you're a lousy leader. In fact, that would explain the whole situation.
- arcticfox 10y ago
  Well, that's an incredibly cynical and negative way to read shykes' words. FWIW, I thought his post was fine. A more constructive response than yours would be to post examples of where Docker has failed in community engagement, rather than just re-stating his post with the most negative spin possible.

bdcravens 10y ago

Won't validate whether this happens with Docker, but I've seen it other places. I won't name names, but I bought a commercial add-on to an open source project very similar to Docker, and when I had a support issue, I was pretty much told "tough luck, not my problem" by the project founder.

fermigier 10y ago
Was the "project founder" related to the company that sold you the commercial add-on? If not, why should he support it, unless of course there is some commercial relationship between the open source project and the company selling the add-on?
- bdcravens 10y ago
  Yes, his company is the one that made the add-on; it was their first commercial product atop the open source project. Today they're a nice fat funded company, but then, they had little revenue, which really put me off.

ldehaan 10y ago

This is such sad entitled crap. It's Free software, as in, you didn't pay for it. Not only that but the other commenters on here are just as enfuriating. I'm not sorry someone made you feel like an idiot, maybe you should try reading more, this system is simple, it's a simple concept, and a simple implementation. It's really too bad you didn't spend the time to learn a system you wanted to implement, it's too bad you didn't read the release notes before you upgraded. This is stuff sysadmins are supposed to do, if you want to work in systems level stuff, learn how it works, don't just run upgrades without reading the release notes for your core technology. Nobody wants to hear this but you need to. Stop treating open source projects like you paid a million dollars for them, they're Free, and yet somehow, like those douche cookies who sue for falling on their ass, people still find a way to make their incompetence someone else's problem. /soapbox

GirlsCanCode 10y ago

Since their users are mostly Ruby and Node people, they probably are. Nobody in the Erlang community uses it.