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It feels like Docker (Inc) is becoming less and less "relevant" for each year that passes. At least from my perspective, they led the popularisation of containe

It feels like Docker (Inc) is becoming less and less "relevant" for each year that passes. At least from my perspective, they led the popularisation of containerisation and the whole cattle-not-pets approach of deploying apps. They created big and long lasting change in the industry. But they seem to have lost the production environment race to Kubernetes, at least for now. They are the biggest player in the dev-machine market, but more alternatives are popping up making it even harder to monetise. And containerd isn't a part of Docker (Inc) any more. They do have Docker Hub, and its privileged position as the default registry of all Docker installs. But I don't really see why paying (i.e enterprise) customers would pick Docker Hub over their friendly neighbourhood cloud provider registry where they already have contracts. Will Docker start rate limiting the public free repos even harder? Maybe making big orgs pay for the privilege of being hosted in the default docker registry? Charging to have the images "verified"? Anyways, I hope Docker find some viable business model, it would be sad to see them fail commercially after arguably succeeding in changing the (devops) world.

feynmanzhou 6y ago
It is no doubt that Kubernetes is popolar and powerful, even some folks believe Kubernetes is the next-gen distributed operating system. But the most challenging thing is the high learning cury for Kubernetes novice. I would recommend an open source Kubernetes platform solution for novice. https://kubesphere.io/ https://kubesphere.io/
brian_herman 6y ago
I want docker to succeed but I agree with you... I just love typing the docker command and the registry was great.
mbreese 6y ago
Is there any profit to be gained from knowing which repositories are the most active? Which get downloaded the most? I mean... you'd think there would be some "market research" type of thing that could be sold, but now that I think about it more, I'm not sure. I assume most of the repositories are either OSS that are pulled a ton, or are pulled by an individual or small team. I'm not sure what the business opportunity is from that knowledge. If there was such a market for that information, I assume they'd have already tried to exploit it...
- Shank 6y ago
  There's definitely this, but it's more of a thing that I'd expect Deloitte or a consultancy to want. There's a huge amount of traction here: undiscovered gems, trends in adoption of new technology, etc. There's also a lot of things they aren't tapping. Just from a security POV alone, a "dependabot for Docker" would probably do a lot for the ecosystem, but hasn't yet happened.
  - felipelemos 6y ago
    This? https://dependabot.com/docker/ https://dependabot.com/docker/
pjmlp 6y ago
I was already doing containers with HP-UX Vaults in version 11 back in 1999. Just like any tool that doesn't offer more than an abstraction layer over OS features, eventually it becomes irrelevant as OS tooling improves.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  From [1] > This is a Virtual Vault release of HP-UX, providing enhanced security features. Virtual Vault is a compartmentalised operating system in which each file is assigned a compartment and processes only have access to files in the appropriate compartment and unlike most other UNIX systems the superuser (or root) does not have complete access to the system without following correct procedures. It's cgroup + chroot, in the closest form. I took it as a very technically incorrect implication with "I was already doing containers with HP-UX Vaults in version 11 back in 1999." Docker is an development product that removes OS as the core concept from application development process. This is at least a milestone as fundamental as VMware's VM tech. The commercial failure of Docker container is unfortunate. But if the technology community cannot appreciate its significance, and let the VM-driven mindset belittle it, that's a true tragedy that puts off the drive to innovate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX
  - TheGRS 6y ago
    And Slack is just IRC for people who don't know better am I right?
    - sombremesa 6y ago
      It pretty much is. A lot of people still use Git GUIs and automatic transmission has handily beaten manual transmission in the US - not everyone understands or even wants to understand the tech they use.
      - TheGRS 6y ago
        Point being that there is value in the abstraction, people value it, people pay for it. I know how to use a stick shift and I'll still pay for automatic for the ease of use.
crb002 6y ago
To be relevant they need to fork Google Test and add cgroup eBPF expectation tests. Run integration tests with thousands of mini-instances that no-op the network stack. Also start making pull requests for a Kubernetes killing feature in the Linux kernel - distributed cgroups and ulimits.
caymanjim 6y ago
Kubernetes is so much more than most people should want or need. It's far too complicated and heavyweight for smaller or simpler deployments. In AWS, most people should use ECS/Fargate instead. There are other competing container environments as well. Your point still stands; Docker popularized containerization and are in danger of becoming irrelevant because they ceded the container execution environment to others.
- bjt 6y ago
  I don't know about "ceded". The container execution environment wasn't a very defensible position. People recognized very quickly that Docker's execution environment was a very thin layer over existing Linux kernel functionality. At my company in 2013, we launched our own internal container containerization about the same time Docker came out, based on LXC. That said, I agree about a higher level PaaS-style offering being a better fit for most companies.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
  I beg to differ. The jump from learning Docker (and containers generally) to learning Kubernetes is not “hard”. Sure it’s a different paradigm of application deployment but I’ve seen far too many posts on HN that completely undermine its value in the name of difficulty. You can use it if you’re not “at scale” completely fine and reap all the benefits as if you were. Idk it’s because people hate Google, so they hate Kubernetes, whether they’re “get off my lawn” DevOps heads who want to maintain their complicated walled garden deployments they hand-rolled to maintain job security or what but it’s frankly embarrassing.
  - 411111111111111 6y ago
    Using k8s to deploy is easy, setting up a cluster with the 'new' admin command is also straightforward... Doing maintenance on the cluster isn't. Debugging routing issues with it isn't either, configuring a production worthy routing to begin with isn't easy either. it's only quick if you deploy weave-net and call it a day. I would strongly discourage anyone using k8s in production unless it's hosted or you have a full team whose only responsibility is it's maintenance, provisioning and configuration
anandrm 6y ago
IMO docker did an amazing paradigm shift of many apps from heavy weight VMs to Micro Services,lot in CI/CD etc .. But all of them dnt make sense without an orchestration platform . Just like how a standalone VM does not make any commercial sense. This has been a question for long time about their revenue model. I guess they did try with compose , swarm , etc but the space was already taken by Kubernetes . I dnt know docker as company would be profitable ..
f430 6y ago
> Anyways, I hope Docker find some viable business model, it would be sad to see them fail commercially after arguably succeeding in changing the (devops) world. It if had a sustainable business model it would be deploying it now.
sneak 6y ago
> It feels like Docker (Inc) is becoming less and less "relevant" for each year that passes. This is underscored for me by the fact that their latest end-user (dev) tools aren't even free software any longer. They started off being unixy as hell, doing one thing and doing it well (and being hackable in the process), and now they ship closed-source spyware under the exact same brand.
- m463 6y ago
  When I went to install docker on macos and it started phoning home from inside the installer, my opinion of them changed.
dschuessler 6y ago
> They are the biggest player in the dev-machine market, but more alternatives are popping up making it even harder to monetise. As someone who loves the feature set of Docker for development but grows increasingly disillusioned with its performance on Mac, would you mind elaborating what these alternatives are?
- mr_tristan 6y ago
  I haven't done a lot with it, but VMWare Fusion has a `vctl` command you can execute in Terminal: https://github.com/VMwareFusion/vctl-docs/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md https://github.com/VMwareFusion/vctl-docs/blob/master/docs/g... Looks like it supports doing some kubernetes stuff using a `kind` cluster. I've had pretty good experiences with Fusion, so, yeah, there's some real Docker alternatives up and coming. I think Docker's great, though, and I feel that we'd never have seen a `vctl` on a mac without it's existence.

feynmanzhou 6y ago

It is no doubt that Kubernetes is popolar and powerful, even some folks believe Kubernetes is the next-gen distributed operating system. But the most challenging thing is the high learning cury for Kubernetes novice. I would recommend an open source Kubernetes platform solution for novice. https://kubesphere.io/ https://kubesphere.io/

brian_herman 6y ago

I want docker to succeed but I agree with you... I just love typing the docker command and the registry was great.

mbreese 6y ago

Is there any profit to be gained from knowing which repositories are the most active? Which get downloaded the most? I mean... you'd think there would be some "market research" type of thing that could be sold, but now that I think about it more, I'm not sure. I assume most of the repositories are either OSS that are pulled a ton, or are pulled by an individual or small team. I'm not sure what the business opportunity is from that knowledge. If there was such a market for that information, I assume they'd have already tried to exploit it...

Shank 6y ago
There's definitely this, but it's more of a thing that I'd expect Deloitte or a consultancy to want. There's a huge amount of traction here: undiscovered gems, trends in adoption of new technology, etc. There's also a lot of things they aren't tapping. Just from a security POV alone, a "dependabot for Docker" would probably do a lot for the ecosystem, but hasn't yet happened.
- felipelemos 6y ago
  This? https://dependabot.com/docker/ https://dependabot.com/docker/

pjmlp 6y ago

I was already doing containers with HP-UX Vaults in version 11 back in 1999. Just like any tool that doesn't offer more than an abstraction layer over OS features, eventually it becomes irrelevant as OS tooling improves.

justicezyx 6y ago
From [1] > This is a Virtual Vault release of HP-UX, providing enhanced security features. Virtual Vault is a compartmentalised operating system in which each file is assigned a compartment and processes only have access to files in the appropriate compartment and unlike most other UNIX systems the superuser (or root) does not have complete access to the system without following correct procedures. It's cgroup + chroot, in the closest form. I took it as a very technically incorrect implication with "I was already doing containers with HP-UX Vaults in version 11 back in 1999." Docker is an development product that removes OS as the core concept from application development process. This is at least a milestone as fundamental as VMware's VM tech. The commercial failure of Docker container is unfortunate. But if the technology community cannot appreciate its significance, and let the VM-driven mindset belittle it, that's a true tragedy that puts off the drive to innovate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX
- TheGRS 6y ago
  And Slack is just IRC for people who don't know better am I right?
  - sombremesa 6y ago
    It pretty much is. A lot of people still use Git GUIs and automatic transmission has handily beaten manual transmission in the US - not everyone understands or even wants to understand the tech they use.
    - TheGRS 6y ago
      Point being that there is value in the abstraction, people value it, people pay for it. I know how to use a stick shift and I'll still pay for automatic for the ease of use.

crb002 6y ago

To be relevant they need to fork Google Test and add cgroup eBPF expectation tests. Run integration tests with thousands of mini-instances that no-op the network stack. Also start making pull requests for a Kubernetes killing feature in the Linux kernel - distributed cgroups and ulimits.

caymanjim 6y ago

Kubernetes is so much more than most people should want or need. It's far too complicated and heavyweight for smaller or simpler deployments. In AWS, most people should use ECS/Fargate instead. There are other competing container environments as well. Your point still stands; Docker popularized containerization and are in danger of becoming irrelevant because they ceded the container execution environment to others.

bjt 6y ago
I don't know about "ceded". The container execution environment wasn't a very defensible position. People recognized very quickly that Docker's execution environment was a very thin layer over existing Linux kernel functionality. At my company in 2013, we launched our own internal container containerization about the same time Docker came out, based on LXC. That said, I agree about a higher level PaaS-style offering being a better fit for most companies.
halfmatthalfcat 6y ago
I beg to differ. The jump from learning Docker (and containers generally) to learning Kubernetes is not “hard”. Sure it’s a different paradigm of application deployment but I’ve seen far too many posts on HN that completely undermine its value in the name of difficulty. You can use it if you’re not “at scale” completely fine and reap all the benefits as if you were. Idk it’s because people hate Google, so they hate Kubernetes, whether they’re “get off my lawn” DevOps heads who want to maintain their complicated walled garden deployments they hand-rolled to maintain job security or what but it’s frankly embarrassing.
- 411111111111111 6y ago
  Using k8s to deploy is easy, setting up a cluster with the 'new' admin command is also straightforward... Doing maintenance on the cluster isn't. Debugging routing issues with it isn't either, configuring a production worthy routing to begin with isn't easy either. it's only quick if you deploy weave-net and call it a day. I would strongly discourage anyone using k8s in production unless it's hosted or you have a full team whose only responsibility is it's maintenance, provisioning and configuration

anandrm 6y ago

IMO docker did an amazing paradigm shift of many apps from heavy weight VMs to Micro Services,lot in CI/CD etc .. But all of them dnt make sense without an orchestration platform . Just like how a standalone VM does not make any commercial sense. This has been a question for long time about their revenue model. I guess they did try with compose , swarm , etc but the space was already taken by Kubernetes . I dnt know docker as company would be profitable ..

f430 6y ago

> Anyways, I hope Docker find some viable business model, it would be sad to see them fail commercially after arguably succeeding in changing the (devops) world. It if had a sustainable business model it would be deploying it now.

sneak 6y ago

> It feels like Docker (Inc) is becoming less and less "relevant" for each year that passes. This is underscored for me by the fact that their latest end-user (dev) tools aren't even free software any longer. They started off being unixy as hell, doing one thing and doing it well (and being hackable in the process), and now they ship closed-source spyware under the exact same brand.

m463 6y ago
When I went to install docker on macos and it started phoning home from inside the installer, my opinion of them changed.

dschuessler 6y ago

> They are the biggest player in the dev-machine market, but more alternatives are popping up making it even harder to monetise. As someone who loves the feature set of Docker for development but grows increasingly disillusioned with its performance on Mac, would you mind elaborating what these alternatives are?

mr_tristan 6y ago
I haven't done a lot with it, but VMWare Fusion has a `vctl` command you can execute in Terminal: https://github.com/VMwareFusion/vctl-docs/blob/master/docs/getting-started.md https://github.com/VMwareFusion/vctl-docs/blob/master/docs/g... Looks like it supports doing some kubernetes stuff using a `kind` cluster. I've had pretty good experiences with Fusion, so, yeah, there's some real Docker alternatives up and coming. I think Docker's great, though, and I feel that we'd never have seen a `vctl` on a mac without it's existence.