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Docker Desktop no longer free for large companies

• raesene9 5y ago
  It'll be interesting to see how well this works out for Docker, I have a feeling they'll lose quite a bit of custom but convert some to this model. I'd guess a lot of people will just use Docker engine on a Linux VM with the CLI on Windows/Mac as that'll work just fine and is open source. This was kind of inevitable though, ultimately Docker had to find a revenue stream somewhere. Docker Hub must be massively expensive to run and developing docker's product isn't free either...
  • syshum 5y ago
    There has been a huge push in the community to switch away from docker anyway. The warning signs from the company have been there for awhile and there are several container engine's, systems, UI's and other management tools not built on docker. This will accelerate those programs
    • awestroke 5y ago
      Can you link me to a single of those alternatives? It must be equally easy to use
      • staysafeanon 5y ago
        Podman: https://podman.io/ https://podman.io/
        • raesene9 5y ago
          Podman isn't a replacement for Docker Desktop (the products in question here). Podman is closest in function to docker engine, which is still open source.
          • syshum 5y ago
            My original comment was not just about Docker Desktop. Their Shenanigans around the Docker Desktop commercial product has cost them alot of good will, and support for their other offerings. This is why podman, and others are looking to replace the docker engine which while still open source is tainted by the actions of the parent company
• alanwreath 5y ago
  Companies with more than 250 employees or $10 million USD in annual revenue must pay a monthly subscription to adhere to the new terms of service.
• BCM43 5y ago
  Since they've buried it a little: "Specifically, small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in revenue) may continue to use Docker Desktop with Docker Personal for free. The use of Docker Desktop in large businesses, however, requires a Pro, Team, or Business paid subscription, starting at $5 per user per month."
  • dang 5y ago
    This comment was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28368997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28368997, so it's quoting the press release, not the current article. We've since merged the threads.
  • judge2020 5y ago
    Anyone know how they plan to enforce this? Audits into the IP space connecting to hub.docker.com? Maybe arbitrary device OS detection a la (nmap -O $local_subnet | grep -ci 'Macbook') > 250
    • qeternity 5y ago
      They won’t need to. The number of 250+ engineer businesses that would risk running unlicensed software is small.
      • merb 5y ago
        well it is AND: "AND less than $10 million in revenue" basically most companies with ~50 people probably has 10 million in revenue (annually). considering wages and buildings and stuff you need for 50 people...
        • cutemonster 5y ago
          (In the US, not in developing countries)
      • academia_hack 5y ago
        I don't think it's 250 seats, but 250 employees. Lots of fairly low tech businesses (such as restaurant or retail chain or universities) may have less than a dozen docker users but still cross that total threshold.
• physicsguy 5y ago
  so, when's everyone switching over to Podman?
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    If you're doing $10M in ARR, how much engineering time are you going to spend to switch compared to paying Docker a few thousand dollars a month? Your spend on cloud and Slack (or other comms) is likely far higher. You're probably spending more on mobile/cell business service. "Docker attempting to monetize users of its product who can easily afford the cost." I mean, the terms seems reasonable, and wouldn't you rather support Docker vs IBM (Redhat->Podman)? Nothing changes for users who aren't making money using Docker, but I suppose you could still spend your time switching to podman on principal.
    • jhawk28 5y ago
      I'm part of a large company and I have no influence over what most other people do. My projects within the company are small so whenever these sorts of things happen, it rarely translates into the company spending a bunch of money to provide the product across the company. At best, I may be able to convince a manager to buy it for 2-10 people on my team.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Licensing isn't perfect. On the contrary, it is the least worst implementation of attempting to extract a reasonable amount of revenue from the user of your software, who is realizing value creation or benefit themselves from its use. SaaS is popular because the exchange of value between producer and consumer (and the ownership and responsibility model) is much more clear (imho). Open source tooling might be a better fit based on your org's needs and your use case. Solving for the intersection of building and maintaining tools people desire and those building said tools eating and paying rent is hard. (no affiliation with docker)
• jbverschoor 5y ago
  What a strange sentence.. As if "Docker" is some third party. They're referring to themselves in the 3rd person. Be warned
  • hbn 5y ago
    Meh, it's just for the headline. If someone shared the article and the title is scraped, "we're" isn't as self-explanatory and required you to look at the URL for context. The article itself uses "we"
    • sekathlon 5y ago
      they just have to delete the word "our" in the headline and all would be fine. this is just weird.
      • Proven 5y ago
        It's not.
    • jbverschoor 5y ago
      "Docker is Updating and Extending Our Product Subscriptions" It's plain wrong. You can't refer to yourself as Docker AND as "we"
• dharmab 5y ago
  Note that Docker Desktop and Docker Engine are separate products. Docker Desktop is the desktop application package that makes Docker user-friendly on macOS and Windows. Docker Engine, the container runtime itself, remains free: > No changes to Docker Engine or any upstream open source Docker or Moby project. If you develop on Linux, no changes are needed.
  • arsfeld 5y ago
    How would that work if you're using WSL? Docker for Desktop uses WSL but creates it's own separate VM (if you can call it a VM). Would I be able to install and run Docker inside Ubuntu's WSL distro to avoid paying for Docker for Desktop?
    • easton 5y ago
      Yes, but you'd have to connect the Docker CLI running in Windows to the engine inside Ubuntu (not hard), and then you wouldn't be able to mount stuff in Windows into Docker containers via relative paths (you'd have to start them with /mnt/c/...). If neither of those things matter for you (like if all of your project code is inside your WSL VM), then it's totally fine.
    • mishafb 5y ago
      You probably can, there's nothing about containers that shouldn't work on WSL2
    • dharmab 5y ago
      You could configure Docker Engine in Ubuntu to expose a network socket, and configure Docker CLI in Windows WSL to use that network socket: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Docker#Daemon_socket https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Docker#Daemon_socket
    • raesene9 5y ago
      You can connect to a remote Docker engine instance over SSH, which is easier to setup than exposing the Docker socket over a TCP port. So install the client inside WSL and the engine on a Linux VM. EDIT: https://raesene.github.io/blog/2018/11/11/Docker-18-09-SSH/ https://raesene.github.io/blog/2018/11/11/Docker-18-09-SSH/ was a blog I wrote when that feature landed, AFAIK it works the same way now :)
• 0xdeadbeefbabe 5y ago
  Linux containers ought to update and extend their product subscriptions too.
• rkachowski 5y ago
  Additionally this change is effective starting August 31st 2021 - i.e. now.
  • justincormack 5y ago
    (CTO of Docker here) there is a grace period until 31 January next year, we understand that this is a change and people need time to sort out payment.
    • jen20 5y ago
      … isn’t it effective January 31st then?
      • birdman3131 5y ago
        It sounds to me like if you start now you have to pay if large enough of a company but if you are already a "customer" you have till january.
      • justincormack 5y ago
        Sorry it is a bit confusing, the overall terms and conditions update is as of now, but the part about paying has a grace period but obviously we want people to know now what will apply. The terms are not very different from previous terms (although I did get the old no benchmarking clause removed, I don't know why we had that there).
        • hyperpape 5y ago
          > I did get the old no benchmarking clause removed, I don't know why we had that there Your company is probably not going to fare well in this thread, but thanks for this! No benchmarking clauses are gross. Glad to see someone with the means to remove one do so.
          • antonyh 5y ago
            I would guess it's to do with the abysmal performance before WSL2.
• kcb 5y ago
  Overall if they want to charge for their product that's fine. I just hate the model of release free or really permissible application, wait for widespread adoption, then tighten clamp. For what it's worth they've lost my business there.
  • codyogden 5y ago
    I want to coin it as “embrace, extend, extort.”
    • cyral 5y ago
      Very accurate for a lot of companies like this lately. Consider it coined.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • pjmlp 5y ago
        Nah, newer generations rediscovering the concept of shareware and trial/demo versions.
        • kcb 5y ago
          Not really. Shareware, Trials, Demos all come with the expectation that if you want to utilize them fully you will eventually need to pay.
        • Rexxar 5y ago
          The (big) difference is honesty. You know you should pay at some point in future if you use shareware/trial/demo and find it useful.
    • benbristow 5y ago
      Same with Telerik Fiddler recently. Good piece of software for debugging network requests on Windows. Was free for as long as I've known it existed. Telerik recently bought by 'Progress' (ironic), software re-written in Electron and now charges a subscription to use it. Glad HTTP Toolkit is now available free for 'hobbyist' tasks - https://httptoolkit.tech/ https://httptoolkit.tech/
• rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  So is Docker going to now maintain all the base images themselves or do they rely on the community to provide those for free? Also, announced on 31.08, effective 31.08 (albeit grace period…)
  • ibly31 5y ago
    I think you wrote the announced and effective dates twice. Effective date being 31 of January as far as I can tell. The whole point of Docker monetizing Docker Desktop is so that they can continue to be funded to maintain the base images themselves. That's the primary sell point of DockerHub.
    • rad_gruchalski 5y ago
      No, the original link was: https://www.docker.com/blog/updating-product-subscriptions/ https://www.docker.com/blog/updating-product-subscriptions/. The page reads as follows: > These new terms take effect August 31, 2021, and there is a grace period until January 31, 2022 for those who require a paid subscription… So: announced 31.08, effective 31.08 (albeit grace period). To add to this, I have received their email with this announcement after after 2pm CEST on 31.08. This must have been an unplanned decision.
• alanwreath 5y ago
  “ the Docker Desktop updated terms only apply to Mac and Windows “
• dpratt 5y ago
  This appears to be cutting of their nose to spite their face. We have a team of 50+ engineers that all use Docker for Mac for daily development tasks, but I suspect that will no longer be true in a rather short amount of time. Frankly, I don’t really know if anybody actually uses the UI components for it outside of starting and stopping the engine and for basic configuration of the VM. Everything else that comes with it is just useless cruft for our use cases. As soon as there is a viable alternative (and I’d be happy to contribute to the effort), I’ll be moving away from Docker for Mac.
  • gigatexal 5y ago
    I tried getting podman working pointing at a Linux server and ram into issues as an alternative to Docker. I’m hoping the kinks get worked out and I can move over.
    • SilverRed 5y ago
      We have been using podman here for all of our developers and have yet to find anything different to docker. Perhaps you are using a more obscure feature.
      • hda111 5y ago
        I think podman is a lot easier than docker. You can stop all containers easily (without xargs) podman stop -a or you can mount the current directory podman run -v .:/mnt or you can mount while you build podman build -v /dir:/dir or you can work entirely without root and have the same user on the host also in the container: podman run --userns=keep-id (useful when a directory is mounted into container but the application refuses to run as root)
  • rcarmo 5y ago
    For the Mac, just get Canonical’s Multipass (http://multipass.run http://multipass.run) and do an apt-get to install Docker into a VM and use VS Code to “remote” to it. It will automatically install the Docker extension inside the Linux VM and you’re set. For Windows, use WSL2 and do the same. Both can mount “local” folders, although the setup is obviously different. You now have a better way to manage containers than ever before.
• detaro 5y ago
  front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28368997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28368997
  • dang 5y ago
    Thanks! Although that thread was posted earlier, I think we'll merge it into this one, on the principle that corporate press releases tend to make worse HN submissions. This is something of an exception to HN's original source rule. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=corporate%20press%20release%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• emptysongglass 5y ago
  Docker Desktop with developer environments would be a great value add if it supported Windows, macOS and Linux. As it is, we have developers in the company using Linux workstations so our Docker subscription is just for a registry. We'll be moving soon given no forthcoming Linux client.
  • Macha 5y ago
    I wonder how many people just use docker desktop as a nicely packaged installer/VM manager? I know I don't use any of the other included tools, so can't see why I'd use docker desktop on Linux myself over just install docker from my package manager (or podman in my case)
  • justincormack 5y ago
    Hi, we have requests for Docker Desktop Linux, please upvote https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/39 https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/39 and we are looking at the details of what we need to do to implement this.
    • emptysongglass 5y ago
      Thanks for listening, Justin. Looking forward to updates. I know it must be tough facing a lot of adversity from the community. I hope you guys continue playing to your strengths, improve customer support (number 1 in my book) and continue beefing out your product portfolio so companies like the one I work for can build healthy relationships with Docker, Inc.
  • frant-hartm 5y ago
    If you are on Linux and using only the open-source bits (that's what I do) and have subscription for the registry, why would you be moving anywhere? What does this change bring that I am missing? As I understand it the change only affects Docker Desktop, which is for MacOS and Windows.
    • emptysongglass 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• glutamate 5y ago
  If Docker wants to grow up, maybe they could start with replying to support tickets from paying customers. I have a 10 day old open ticket with no reply.
  • emptysongglass 5y ago
    This has also been our experience with the company.
    • emptysongglass 5y ago
      I can no longer edit this comment but I just wanted to update that Docker the company has really made huge strides in the last few days to rectify our experience. So if you're having a hard time, reach out. My feeling speaking directly with some Docker people is that they're proud of the company and believe in its future.
  • justincormack 5y ago
    Hey sorry about that, can you send me the ticket details justin @ docker.com and I can look into it.
    • glutamate 5y ago
      I have a better idea. How about you look at EVERY open ticket, starting with those from paying customers? EDIT: Wow, they actually did this and got back to me - thank you!
      • asddubs 5y ago
        if they're smart they just looked at all the 10 day old tickets
        • ghostpepper 5y ago
          maybe 10 +/-1 for time zones
• throwawayy293 5y ago
  I personally support Docker Desktop for Mac for an organization of 250-300 engineers. I have been supporting it for 2 years now. Been through all the Docker Desktop upgrades, performance issues everytthing. I have researched docker performance on macs running k3d + k3s + istio and a bunch of microservices. I have had to jump into the internals of Docker daemon and docker cli and networking to solve how docker networks are provisioned for various proxying issues. 1. Docker dragged their feet with native performance for file syncing. We have to selectively enable it and just so that it doesn't bog the machine down. 2. When running it gets the CPU running at 75-80C, causing the fan to run non-stop at 3000 rpm at least. It is definitely impact by bad macbook pro design, which is terrible at airflow and heat sink activities 3. We were on unstable for a bit to test the new file syncing approach. Docker dropped that in stable and said "deal with it" 4. The paid forced upgrade notification means that I can't peg the Docker Desktop version for the whole org at a certain version. 5. Right after we switch from the unstable to stable, the next minor version is a breaking change. 6. Number 4 would be fine it docker would keep to their guarantee of stable being stable. They do a terrible job of being backwards compatible. The current stable we had was 3.3.1. With the constant minor upgrades, and pushing people, some people went to 3.6.0. (the latest as of yesterday, Aug 30) This broke everything inexplicable with just a VM error where k3d would keep crashing. I downgraded everyone back to 3.3.1 to get teams unblocked while waiting for me to find a fix. 7. Finding a fix usually involves waiting for Docker to prioritize something but at this point I don't trust that Docker know what it is doing. I am currently pushing for Linux laptops, hosted dev environments and reducing the need to run distributed monoliths. We shall see.
  • stonecharioteer 5y ago
    I hope you do get the Linux Laptops through. I just joined s company that made an exception for me to use Linux and I haven't felt more valued ever. I never want to use another OS again.
  • Aicy 5y ago
    I think it's unreasonable to expect so much from a company that doesn't make money. The non-desktop docker product on it's own is crazy good, I think it's reasonable to expect docker desktop to improve once docker actually makes money from it and can afford to hire more engineers to work on it.
• babaganoosh89 5y ago
  So using the CLI is still free on Mac, just not the gui desktop app?
  • athorax 5y ago
    I believe "docker desktop" on mac includes all the various plumbing to get the docker cli working transparently (vs. running docker yourself in a VM)
• mfer 5y ago
  Rancher Desktop is an open source container management and Kubernetes desktop app. https://rancherdesktop.io/ https://rancherdesktop.io/ Disclosure: I work on Rancher Desktop. Feedback welcome.
  • kristjansson 5y ago
    Seems interesting, but the name conflict with https://rancher.com/ https://rancher.com/ is _very_ confusing. Is Rancher Desktop associated with the linked company?
    • mfer 5y ago
      Rancher Desktop is being build by Rancher (which is now part of SUSE).
      • kristjansson 5y ago
        Thanks - that wasn't obvious from the Rancher Desktop site.
  • adolph 5y ago
    Ok, I gave it a try. It's given me two K8s errors before any meaningful container work can be done. Not going to waste further time given a first run experience this bad. I'm interested in investing in my tools, not alpha-testing.
    • athorax 5y ago
      Probably shouldn't run tools in alpha status then
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • emptysongglass 5y ago
    You guys (by you guys I mean you and Docker, Inc) would do yourselves a huge favor not spiting the Linux devs who invented the technologies you build your tools on. Where's the Linux version? Give it to me in Snap, AppImage, Flatpak, deb, or rpm, whatever you want. Just offer something. We'll take care of the rest.
• db3pt0 5y ago
  Looking at the installation instructions for Docker on Mac/Windows, what is the expected way to install the Docker Engine without installing the Desktop bundle? From https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/binaries/#install-client-binaries-on-macos https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/binaries/#install-cli... > The macOS binary includes the Docker client only. It does not include the dockerd daemon.
  • kristjansson 5y ago
    Docker Engine only runs on Linux. Docker for Mac/Windows sets up a Linux VM using macOS/Windows native virtualization via the open-source HyperKit/VPNKit abstractions maintained by Docker-the-Company and the community. That VM runs Docker Enginer (dockerd) and all interaction (docker CLI commands, shared volumes, networking, etc.) are proxied into that VM.
    • OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
      So unless I'm missing something important, why not just use docker engine directly on a wsl2 instance?
      • mongol 5y ago
        Is that working? Does wsl2 provide more than a shell?
        • dharmab 5y ago
          WSL2 uses a full Linux VM running under HyperV.
          • devoutsalsa 5y ago
            WSL2 can get weird when you start trying to install software with low level virtualization and file system features. YMMV. I’d use it to install apps, but I wouldn’t be confident it’d work with Docker. Even if it did initially work, eventually you’ll hit a problem for which there is no googleable answer & good luck with that.
• smarx007 5y ago
  I think HN needs to update their algorithm. If there is a large number of upvotes and flags, flags should count as votes from some point on. More people need to see this post and discussion needs to happen instead of pushing it off the front page in less than an hour.
  • jameshart 5y ago
    If this isn’t front page headline news on HN then something NZ gone very wrong, agreed.
  • Macha 5y ago
    I think since flags effect on ranking has becoming more known, there's more people using it as a post downvote, too.
• detaro 5y ago
  Curious to see what that means for Windows containers. Microsoft is heavily recommending Docker there, but asking people to license another thing from a third party just to be able to use a feature on their expensive Windows licenses seems somewhat on the nose for them to push.
  • jrsj 5y ago
    Maybe this is just a play to get Microsoft to acquire Docker lol
• adolph 5y ago
  I wonder how much Docker is paying Synk.io for 200/mo Local vulnerability scans with Snyk?
• cybrexalpha 5y ago
  This seems like a bit of a footgun from Docker Inc. Those on Linux will just run Docker Engine (the open source part) directly, or move to alternatives like Podman. Docker Desktop only really has value on macOS and Windows, and there it's only because nobody wants to manage the glue to setup a Linux VM. Given the cost, I suspect many will chose to do that glue work themselves and I wouldn't be surprised to see an open source project spring up to do that. Everything else is handled by other parts of the ecosystem already, image registries both private and public, orchestration, etc.
  • sascha_sl 5y ago
    macOS is the hard one to solve. It does a lot of magic things in the background and Docker even created their own "distro" / VM build system, linuxkit, that went on to be useful in a lot of other places to make it work. A lot of macOS developers imo seem to have more knowledge in their specific domain and less in how to wire up a VM to look seamless, they'll need the docker CLI to work with the local filesystem to keep a lot of existing Makefiles functional, I see a bunch of companies caughing up money in the short term just for that. Docker Desktop on Windows itself proves quite well that WSL2 works fine for this use case.
  • duped 5y ago
    The hype/buzzword driven development surrounding micro services/containerization has hit middle America and enterprises spend dumb amounts of money on related projects. I can see them spending more money on Docker Desktop with no difficulty, because the incentive is not to save money.
  • qeternity 5y ago
    It’s not the users who will be paying for it. Enterprises will bend over and take this 100% Good move by Docker, financially speaking. They have little to lose.
    • coding123 5y ago
      It's a short sited move that will kill D.Desktop. It's not that these large corps don't have the money for this, it's how money is allocated in companies. Instead, now all hobby projects in large corp get killed fast and early because the hobbyist knows their project is doomed if the company isn't going to go for a new bill. A whole bunch of scenarios die now.
• 0x500x79 5y ago
  Unless I am missing something this is pretty huge. Every company I have worked at that has issued MacBooks has had development environment instructions which outline using docker desktop (since it is the simplest solution). Given this headline every one of those companies would have needed to get licensing for that. As others have stated: I am okay with attempting to monetize your work, but increasing prices like this (especially from free to a pretty pricey per-head subscription model) doesn't sit well with me. There doesn't seem to be much differentiation between the tier besides: "How many employees/revenue you have" and that is not my favorite line of charging. Does this relate at all to the forced upgrades that were pushed earlier this year?
  • culpable_pickle 5y ago
    Of course it does. Else you could downgrade to a pervious release with different licensing and not have to pay...
• techthumb 5y ago
  I've been using Minikube's docker-engine and haven't missed DockerForMac for some time now. Minikube sets up a Linux VM using MacOS Hypervisor. It even has a convenience command to configure docker-cli/docker-client. $ minikube docker-env export DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY="1" export DOCKER_HOST="tcp://192.168.65.11:2376" export DOCKER_CERT_PATH="/Users/wibble/.minikube/certs" export MINIKUBE_ACTIVE_DOCKERD="minikube" For corporate situations where MITM proxies are used, you can inject/trust custom CAs using $ minikube start --embed-certs https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/untrusted_certs/ https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/handbook/untrusted_certs/
  • jackcviers3 5y ago
    Before Docker Desktop there existed a solution called docker toolkit that worked exactly like this. The only problem is that occasionally internal corporate networks will use the same ip address and you have to customize that by building your own docker engine.
  • deusex_ 5y ago
    But what minikube backend are you using for this? The preferred one is Docker and all the others are also paid on Mac.
    • techthumb 5y ago
      I am using "hyperkit" Available options: --driver='': Driver is one of: virtualbox, parallels, vmwarefusion, hyperkit, vmware, docker, ssh (defaults to auto-detect)
    • TheDong 5y ago
      > all the others are also paid on Mac Hyperkit is open source software that works on macOS. https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/drivers/hyperkit/ https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/drivers/hyperkit/ Virtualbox is also a free (as in beer, and mostly libre) driver that works on all of windows/linux/macOS
      • vesinisa 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• coding123 5y ago
  As weird as it might seem, Microsoft would probably be the best company to acquire Docker at this point. They could probably turn this around a bit into a free with Windows, pay for Linux (at the 250 employee level - possibly up the employee count to 500 though).
  • hbn 5y ago
    > free with Windows, pay for Linux Isn't Docker Desktop (i.e. the part being sold) just a client that sets up a Linux VM to run the free part?
  • orthoxerox 5y ago
    Nah, they should just build a vscode plugin that makes it easy to manage docker running inside WSL2. Bam, Docker Desktop is a beached whale.
• raman162 5y ago
  It's shameful that this product was once free is now going to be charged, even if it's only for larger businesses. I wonder how sustainable it is for docker to be like other open source entities and rely on consistent donations from major corporations to rely on income. I also wonder if this will impede on docker adoption in the coming months. I guess time is the only one that can tell
  • andrewmcwatters 5y ago
    Shameful? What's shameful about it? Software entitlement is outrageous. It's the only field where people expect professionals to keep doling out labor for free and then complain about the free stuff. If it isn't already abundantly clear to you: free software isn't sustainable. It's built on the backs of people who provide it for whatever reason they choose. This be a beggar so I can continue to have free stuff mentality has got to go.
    • raman162 5y ago
      Shameful may have been a harsh word , disappointing is more appropriate. The disappointing part is that a product that was once free and distributed in abundance is now requiring licensing starting immediately for small businesses. There is a transition gap but the policy is effective starting today. There were no added features of value, it was just a random change of price from nothing to something. I think the new enterprise features that they are boasting about which is probably where they would end up making most of their money could have been suffice as this new policy is going to be difficult for them to enforce. I'm sure docker desktop originally being free contributed to them being this popular. It made using containers for development super easy on windows and Mac. Now that they have the huge user base, they're in a good position to dictate terms in their favour whether we like it or not.
      • andrewmcwatters 5y ago
        The only thing you’re saying here is that you don’t recognize its value and you don’t want to pay for it. No, wait, you don’t want businesses—fully capable organizations who can pay—to pay for it. You should be ashamed. There’s nothing random about it. A tech business is finally realizing giving products away for free isn’t a business. What a surprise. > Now that they have the huge user base, they're in a good position to dictate terms in their favour whether we like it or not. No one is forcing you to use docker. Grow up. Better yet, you try building a product, giving it away to choosing beggar developers, and figure out how to run a business where you pay six-figure engineering salaries to qualified employees off the cash flow of “donations.” What a joke.
• benjaminwootton 5y ago
  Docker have never done the one obvious thing to monetise - an upsell and enterprise support for the engine. Trying to be a poor mans pivotal was a stupid strategy, and developer tools is awkward too. I’m convinced if they charged $10 per engine per month they would have kept all of the goodwill and momentum and been the next VMWare.
  • V99 5y ago
    They tried that ("Docker Enterprise Edition") years ago, with some minor differentiation on features only available in EE... but for $62-300/node/month. This is now the part Mirantis owns, current Docker is the developer-focused side. https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-enterprise-edition/ https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-enterprise-edition/ https://web.archive.org/web/20171118161452/https://www.docker.com/pricing https://web.archive.org/web/20171118161452/https://www.docke...
  • gjs278 5y ago
    vmware is the next cobol. nobody under 50 is going to use that shit.
  • sneak 5y ago
    The engine on Windows is nonfree (both cost and freedom).
• qeternity 5y ago
  So many people in this thread don’t understand how enterprise decisions get made. The business license costs $21/month, probably less in reality. Do you really think that businesses are going to jeopardize the workflows of their $250k/year assets over a very core piece of software for $250/year? Any alternative has switching costs and risks. Companies will just pay this. I see so many people saying “just do these 10 steps and it’s basically the same”. It just ain’t worth it for $250
  • gfiorav 5y ago
    Exactly. This makes sense. USD 21 per user/month + bulk discount is nothing. If companies want to roll their own they can, but most won't. Docker Desktop adds a lot of value if only by removing the hassle for quick os-agnostic development.
    • eptcyka 5y ago
      What is the value add for Docker Desktop? In a world where podman exists, what's the point of docker on dev machines anyway?
      • trey-jones 5y ago
        Well, I hadn't heard of podman until now, and I imagine I'm not the only one. Does it consistently have functional parity with docker?
        • eric__cartman 5y ago
          I use it on my Fedora dev machine and it's pretty good. Still wouldn't replace a mission critical machine with it, as it isn't the primary target for docker containers to run on and it can break more easily.
          • hda111 5y ago
            It will break from time to time. But so does Docker Desktop. Neither Docker nor Podman are suitable for mission critical stuff. Their market is entirely dev machines and devs can fix in on their own.
• ben7799 5y ago
  We use Docker Desktop for the Mac at work. (Large company) Docker for Mac absolutely sucks. If they’re going to force everyone to pay they better start fixing bugs. They recently stopped allowing skipping a release unless you pay, and then promptly shipped a point release with a showstopper bug. I literally asked IT for a Linux VM/Cloud machine yesterday for development because my Mac is dead in the water due to a bug. It’s time efficient to develop on the Mac if it works, but the overall experience is terrible compared to Linux on the desktop IMO.
  • SilasX 5y ago
    >They recently stopped allowing skipping a release unless you pay, and then promptly shipped a point release with a showstopper bug. Whoa, really? Is this written up somewhere? My first "WTF" with docker was in Fall 2015 when we dockerized our app and had it nicely set up so we could tell employees "run this command and the app Just Works" ... and then they introduced a breaking change to the format of docker compose files so it just mysteriously stopped working in the middle of the day.
    • Rebelgecko 5y ago
      They might be referring to this? https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/183 https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/183
      • SilasX 5y ago
        Thanks! Great HN discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26547268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26547268
  • nagyf 5y ago
    > They recently stopped allowing skipping a release unless you pay I honestly thought that's a bug. That is so ridiculous if that's intentional. I agree with your post and have similar experiences with Docker for Mac
    • 5y ago
• erikkri 5y ago
  This seems like a relevant link: https://medium.com/crowdbotics/a-complete-one-by-one-guide-to-install-docker-on-your-mac-os-using-homebrew-e818eb4cfc3 https://medium.com/crowdbotics/a-complete-one-by-one-guide-t...
  • berdon 5y ago
    This is likely the most realistic path forward for most developers using MBPs.
  • jcoder 5y ago
    Unfortunately, it looks like work is also underway to deprecate and remove `docker-machine`: https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/245 https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/245
• YetAnotherNick 5y ago
  I don't get it. There still seems to be a free version, which includes bundled docker engine, right? I think this is the only part of docker desktop that most devs need. Private repos were always a paid feature AFAIK. The concerning text written is "Limited image pulls per day". What's the limit here?
• andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Of course it's already obvious how successful Docker is in terms of consumption, but it's even more clear in this thread how successful Docker is. Look at how many complaints there are, and people still use it.
• CyanLite2 5y ago
  Surprised no one like Microsoft has stepped in to buy Docker out-right.
• peytoncasper 5y ago
  There reality of this is that Docker is setting themselves up as an enterprise software business. Like the one they spun out a short while ago. You as a developer won’t be involved with purchasing Docker subscriptions. Instead they’ll have sales teams that approach your IT department who will pay for support reasons and pre install Docker Desktop on all company hardware. That’s why this is only focused at larger companies. This gives IT departments someone to call when a developer reports a problem.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• krzyk 5y ago
  I'm a bit puzzled what costs and what not, as it is a first time I see "Docker Desktop" name. I use docker on linux, mainly executing "docker build", "docker run", etc. Does it still cost if I do it in a 1k+ company during work?
  • vlunkr 5y ago
    The article says there are no changes to the command line tool. This is the first time I'm hearing of Docker Desktop as well.
  • treesknees 5y ago
    Docker Desktop is the only way to run Docker "natively" on Windows and MacOS (I say "natively" because it's really using a linux VM behind the scenes.) So if you're on Linux, nothing has changed (yet).
• Shank 5y ago
  "Large" is a bit of an interesting statement. Companies with $10m in revenue are very common, and are often smaller companies. Software is all about leverage. A very small team can create a lot of leverage with the right tools to make a very strong product and get to $10m ARR without necessarily having many people. It seems like the real cost to this change is the goodwill from smaller companies + teams that are now realizing they'll have another expense dropped on them. Except the expense is a previously free product with no real improvements, at least from what I can tell.
• etxm 5y ago
  Honest question: Besides IT endpoint management, why does our industry continue to develop software that is leaning more and more towards containerization on Mac OS? I’ve been a Mac user for 20 years and do a lot of docker and Kubernetes work. I recently started developing on a Linux machine that was a fourth of the price and a lot less burden for my day-to-day work.
  • 0x500x79 5y ago
    I mean, your "Besides IT endpoint management" comment is the primary reason that most of the jobs that I have worked at won't let me get a linux machine.
• tacobelllover99 5y ago
  Mirantis needs to pay the bills
• princevegeta89 5y ago
  Is the docker for Mac fixed yet? Last time I checked there were issues with disk mounting which really affected performance
• moogly 5y ago
  How do you even install Docker Engine on Windows without WSL2? Same goes for macOS.
  • treesknees 5y ago
    If you're referring to Docker Desktop on Windows, you can use the Hyper-V backend instead of WSL2. MacOS uses HyperKit API to spin up a Linux VM to run it. There is no native engine for Windows or MacOS. https://docs.docker.com/desktop/windows/install/ https://docs.docker.com/desktop/windows/install/
    • moogly 5y ago
      Sure, but I've never seen a non-Docker Desktop installer for any of the tools like the CLI, Compose etc., and I can't seem to find one now either.
      • naikrovek 5y ago
        https://download.docker.com/win/static/stable/x86_64/ https://download.docker.com/win/static/stable/x86_64/ Not an installer, and doesn't include docker-compose, but this is what you're talking about, I think. Only supports Windows containers.
• nickjj 5y ago
  For everyone who is against this change, can you please write up why? For a ton of small companies (anyone making $10 million or less per year) nothing is going to change and DD is still free to use. If you're at a big organization with let's say 200 developers chances are your company makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Even Docker's most expensive business plan would cost you 200 * $21 = $4,200 month. Payroll for your 200 developers will likely be over 3 million dollars a month. How can you be upset with paying 4k a month? That's almost nothing relative to other expenses. Realistically I'm surprised Docker is charging so little for their business plan. Making 4k on 200 developers at a 300 million+ company is not asking a lot.
  • kcb 5y ago
    Because procurement processes suck and developers don't want to deal with them. When it's something from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, it's not a problem because those deals are handled at a level that developers don't interact much with and are ingrained as business critical. There's no way we're going to have a contract with Docker by January so I fully expect a "Please uninstall Docker Desktop" email long before that.
    • nickjj 5y ago
      What if you asked the person who would write that email to instead ask Docker if they can extend the grace period for you until you can get a contract set up? Since it's unclear if / how Docker can enforce their TOS I'm guessing they would be happy to extend it because the other avenues lead to you not using DD or using it without paying.
      • Closi 5y ago
        > What if you asked the person who would write that email to instead ask Docker if they can extend the grace period for you until you can get a contract set up? I think OP's principle is that it will probably just be easier to switch tools than to push the $42k annual spend through the organisational mud to get it approved (depending on how muddy the mud is). This is particularly true for a single developer that wants to start using docker desktop, if the rest of the org isn't already using it.
• lanevorockz 5y ago
  RIP
• sgt 5y ago
  "or higher than $10m in annual revenue" .. that isn't necessary a large company. And it says nothing of profit.
• paxys 5y ago
  Their product and pricing page is extremely vague and full of dark patters, and doesn't really describe what "Docker Desktop" even is. Can I use the CLI without downloading Docker Desktop? Can I launch the daemon and interact with it via the API?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• antonyh 5y ago
  I see this as an opportunity to play with Podman. I don't fall into the category where I'll need to pay, but Docker Desktop has long been somewhat user-hostile. The forced updates I HATE. It's my machine, I get to pick the version of software it runs. And I've had enough bad updates from Docker to get jittery when it pushes one on me.
• zenlf 5y ago
  On the one hand, I'm sad that I probably have to uninstall docker desktop because I only use it for small side projects, on the other I understand Docker Inc's need to monetize as a for profit company. I do have a genuine question though. Can a company just change their pricing structure and make it effective immediately(I understand they have a grace period here)? I guess for free tiers they probably can, because the users have never paid them, but what if I'm a paying customer? Could Docker simply say sorry we have changed our pricing from next billing cycle(or tomorrow) you have to pay 100% more. Could they legally do something like that?
• zmmmmm 5y ago
  Interestingly, I think this may be a boon for kubernetes. We've been managing all our infrastructure with docker / compose, and its been great. But one of the key advantages is unifying the dev & prod environments. Now lately we've been outgrowing the docker solution so k8 is on the radar, but one of the things holding me back is losing the unified prod/dev experience. So the question has been, take the hit and suck up all the bugs, confusion, duplication etc. that come from having these separate, or move everyone over to k8 and have to deal with the complexity on the developer side? Well, this decision now definitely tips the scales - there's a distinct advantage to going all in on k8s because we can run it up and down the stack and not be constantly hassled by licensing and software restrictions.
• mleonhard 5y ago
  > There's a standards conversion going on where we can trace the provenance of each and every layer of the image, we can start signing those layers, and with that metadata, we can start doing automated decisioning, automated reporting, automated visibility into what's been done to that image at each step of the lifecycle. Docker's CEO is being disingenuous. When you deploy a Docker container, you specify the image ID. The ID looks like a SHA-256 digest and even starts with the string 'sha256' but it is an arbitrary value generated by the docker daemon on the local machine. The ID is not a hash of the image contents [0, 1]. In other words, docker images are not content-addressed. Since docker images are not content-addressed, your image registry and image transfer tools can subvert the security of your production systems. The fix is straightforward: make an image ID be the SHA-256 digest of the image contents, which is the same everywhere: on your build system, image registry, test system, and production hosts. This fix will increase supply chain security for all Docker users. It is massive low-hanging fruit. Now Docker will add image signatures without first making images content-addressed. Their decision makes sense only if their goal is to make money and not make a secure product. I cannot trust a company with such priorities. [0] https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/39247#issuecomment-496971248 https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/39247#issuecomment-49697... [1] https://github.com/distribution/distribution/issues/1662 https://github.com/distribution/distribution/issues/1662 EDIT: Added another link.
  • bspammer 5y ago
    The fact that images are not content-addressed is very surprising to me. I just always assumed they were because… why wouldn’t they be? I bet a large proportion of other devs assumed the same.
    • voxic11 5y ago
      They are if you use the digest rather than the id.
      • mleonhard 5y ago
        You can specify the digest of a base image when building a new image. You cannot specify the digest of a built image when starting a container.
• ericpp 5y ago
  A better strategy to me would've been to keep it free and tightly integrate it with Docker Hub to push people towards Docker Hub services. This software is already installed on most Windows computers that need to use Docker and provides a perfect opportunity to promote Docker Hub and any of their other services.
• flemhans 5y ago
  Received an unsolicited mail from them outlining the new terms, with no way to unsubscribe.
• znpy 5y ago
  I've been blandly pushing for podman at work. Maybe this time management will start listening. Plus, frankly, podman works reliably well in rootless mode, no more messing up with docker in docker, you can be root in you container without needing pretty much any privileged resources. And since podman 3.x you can use docker-compose just pointing it to the user rootless podman socket. And podman can start act like a dumb kubernetes and start pods and deployment from the yaml definitions.
• xiaodai 5y ago
  right move
• dboreham 5y ago
  Countdown started until Microsoft adds their own docker to Windows.
• mikeflynn 5y ago
  My team and I use Docker Desktop and I don't think anyone signs in. We just use it to install the docker cli tools on the Mac. We're a small dev team, but it seems like nothing is changing at all for those of us who don't sign in to Docker.
  • ibly31 5y ago
    It's free anyway if you sign in and your company is less than 250 employees and less than $10mil in revenue
• jordemort 5y ago
  Well, that's one way to drive Podman adoption.
• smackeyacky 5y ago
  I can see Microsoft or Amazon stepping into this space. If GitHub desktop is anything to go by, getting [MS][AWS]Container Desktop as a replacement for Docker desktop would be a no brainer. 90% of what Docker Desktop does is already available in VSCode in some form, just the janky GUI is missing. Somebody else already did the hard work to get it going with WSL2, why not just cut out the 3rd party you don't need and put it together so the command lines were compatible and your existing tooling works. AWS and Microsoft both have skin in this game and Docker Desktop would be right in their sights. On something like Debian, you don't even get a desktop gui and you don't miss it either. No reason why WSL2 or a mac shouldn't be exactly the same.
• jcoder 5y ago
  Reading this I was thinking I would wake up tomorrow and go back to using `docker-machine` and a separate VM for development on my work mac. Interesting timing that they started the work to deprecate/remove `docker-machine` three weeks ago: https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/245 https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/245
• jillesvangurp 5y ago
  You can use a remote docker host pretty easily. I've been playing with qemu on my mac since I read the announcement regarding docker for mac no longer being free (as in beer). I have port 5555 forwarded to 22 on the qemu vm so I can ssh into it. You can use whatever you want for virtual machines of course. Qemu seems nice these days but requires a bit of fiddling to get working. Virtualbox or vmware are probably easier. And this works just as well with cloud based virtual machines or any kind of remote host. Assuming you have docker and ssh running on your remote host: # point docker on your mac to your remote machine export DOCKER_HOST=ssh://dude@localhost:5555 # run nginx or whatever you want docker run -p 8080:80 nginx # forward the port locally ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 -p 5555 jilles@localhost # open http://localhost:8080 in your browser There are all sorts of things you can do beyond this to make this more seamless but this is pretty sweet already.
• isatty 5y ago
  I think that the functionality provided by Docker needs to be a first class citizen in Linux, cli and user interface including and not just the backend. I don't like having my workflows tied to a private companies whims. Podman is a viable alternative, and while its tied to redhat, it's still better than Docker imho.
  • mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    Systemd has something called "systemd-nspawn" back when Docker was at its peak. Not sure if its still around.
  • gjs278 5y ago
    lol absolutely not. if you think it’s going to get first class UI support before qemu does you are delusional. docker may not even be the top dog in 5 years, it could easily lose to kubernetes or even plain VMs / jails.
• dgellow 5y ago
  That’s surprisingly cheap
• dedoussis 5y ago
  What stops any developer of a large org using Docker Desktop through their personal license/account? How is such a restriction going to be imposed?
• WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  Kind of annoying that Docker Hub and Docker Desktop are both sold in one package. As someone who uses Docker Hub (the public repos) but not Docker Desktop (their Windows/Mac proprietary apps), it pisses me to have to pay for crap software I don't use nor care about. Then again, the ecosystem did end up being built to be centralised around on single repository, so we did all kinda buy into this.
• acro5piano 5y ago
  Just use Linux desktop
• habosa 5y ago
  Tech companies should not be able to offer something for free and then later charge for it. It should be illegal and prosecuted as anticompetitive behavior. It's not at all fair to potential competition, who can't beat free and therefore don't enter the marketplace. It's just a way to try and capture a whole market unfairly. Then when the price goes up you can end up with regretful consumers who may have chosen another option if not for the misleading pricing. If they want to do this, it should have to say in big bold font "this is free for now and we will charge for it later, you will have X months of warning before being required to pay at that time". In some non-software industries this is already considered illegal behavior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) I'd personally even go so far as to say that there should be some legislation around using very cheap loss-inducing prices for extended periods of time to capture the market and then jacking them back up. Like how Ubers used to cost ~30% of what they do now in San Francisco. But that's a lot harder to specify as there are legitimate use cases for sales and loss leaders.
• seanhunter 5y ago
  I don't really see Docker having that much of an alternative - they have to figure out some way to make money and none of their other attempts have worked. That being said, since the core docker tech is free, this will surely just cause some free alternative to DD to spring up in the relatively short term, and accelerate the move away from Docker in general, which has been happening for a while.
• GordonS 5y ago
  Anyone here running the Docker Engine in WSL2? I've been using Docker Desktop for years, and thankfully it's been more stable for the past year or two - before that it was a shitshow. It works great for me now, but I don't actually need or use any of the GUI features - it's more or less a glorified installer for Docker Engine. Not sure if it has to do any magic for mounting Windows folders to work? Anyway, curious if it's possible to just run Docker Engine in WSL2 myself, if there are any gotchas, and if mounting Windows folders "just works"?
• fennecfoxy 5y ago
  God forbid a company charge money for software they make. I don't understand why people are so angry considering they're still allowing free use outside of businesses.
• jay_at_adnx 5y ago
  There's a lot of fair points here. We (big company not fitting in the personal/free tier of the subscription) were using docker desktop (on windows 10) to build windows (server) targeted images. From the various comments, it seems like it's really not a common use case. The question I have is : how does one is supposed to proceed with this specific use case if the subscription is not considered for various reasons ? Switch the dev environment to windows server ? Drop the windows container ball and switch to Linux based one ? Are we the only company doing this kind of stunt ? (and feeling a kind of vendor-lock-in vibes right now ?)
• HeavyStorm 5y ago
  Company has half a million employees. Most are developers. Many use Docker daily. No way the company is fronting these costs.