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> If your team is using their tools daily since years, and you decide to change to a different one just to avoid a small license fee, that feels hypocritical F

> If your team is using their tools daily since years, and you decide to change to a different one just to avoid a small license fee, that feels hypocritical From engineer's perspective the difference between a free tool and a "small fee" (in most companies) is not money. It's the fact that you now have to jump through provisioning hoops and ask for permission to use the tool. The difference in flexibility is enormous.

yunohn 5y ago
That’s exactly what Docker wants though - You’re using a tool for gainful development for your company. They should be able to afford a fee to compensate Docker for that.
- mbreese 5y ago
  And the risk to Docker is that the red tape required to buy the product isn’t worth the hassle, especially if there are alternatives to using the paid product. This is all based on open source, so I’d expect there to be many new alternatives within weeks. And workflows for existing tools/interfaces will probably be detailed in blog posts by the weekend.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories. Most people on this thread are not commenting on lack of business model, rather that they “don’t want to pay”.
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      Totally. Paying a reasonable amount is actually cheaper than the manpower and attention required for an ‘open source check.’ And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-)
      - yunohn 5y ago
        > And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-) 100%. That’s why these threads shitting on Docker bug me.
    - dijit 5y ago
      > There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories. FAANG (especially Google) have a tendency to take inspiration and rewrite the things that they find interesting. Notably: Piper (very similar to Perforce) in google.
      - yunohn 5y ago
        Not sure why you’re comparing version control to a GUI - my experience at FAANG has been quite positive on the usage of licensed tools like Docker Desktop.
        dijit 5y ago
        People keep telling me that docker for desktop is more than a gui. So either it is or it isn’t and that’s not really for me to say. But perforce is a (mainly) gui thing and was not “safe” from reimplementation. A deciding factor may have been that perforce is licensed software; but it could have just of easily been because google wanted better integrations. Both are true for Docker for Desktop
      - yawaramin 5y ago
        They also have a tendency to be facing problems and scale issues that are irrelevant to like 99% of other developers, so it's a moot point.
    - mbreese 5y ago
      I don’t doubt it. But not everyone works for those kind of companies. I’m also not sure which class of company outnumbers the other, but I think we’d both be surprised.
  - david38 5y ago
    That’s not a risk. Show me a real company that doesn’t pay for any products and I’ll show you a thousand that do. Not pay for Docker? What are they going to do? Get everyone on AWS tomorrow? The cost and downtime for most places would be massive.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> From engineer's perspective the difference between a free tool and a "small fee" (in most companies) is not money. It's the fact that you now have to jump through provisioning hoops and ask for permission to use the tool. The difference in flexibility is enormous. So is the difference in cost to the business: if the fee is small per seat, then the big cost is the license administration overhead, not the license fee, so the induced cost can be much greater than the revenue the seller realizes.

yunohn 5y ago

That’s exactly what Docker wants though - You’re using a tool for gainful development for your company. They should be able to afford a fee to compensate Docker for that.

mbreese 5y ago
And the risk to Docker is that the red tape required to buy the product isn’t worth the hassle, especially if there are alternatives to using the paid product. This is all based on open source, so I’d expect there to be many new alternatives within weeks. And workflows for existing tools/interfaces will probably be detailed in blog posts by the weekend.
- yunohn 5y ago
  There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories. Most people on this thread are not commenting on lack of business model, rather that they “don’t want to pay”.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    Totally. Paying a reasonable amount is actually cheaper than the manpower and attention required for an ‘open source check.’ And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-)
    - yunohn 5y ago
      > And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-) 100%. That’s why these threads shitting on Docker bug me.
  - dijit 5y ago
    > There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories. FAANG (especially Google) have a tendency to take inspiration and rewrite the things that they find interesting. Notably: Piper (very similar to Perforce) in google.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      Not sure why you’re comparing version control to a GUI - my experience at FAANG has been quite positive on the usage of licensed tools like Docker Desktop.
      - dijit 5y ago
        People keep telling me that docker for desktop is more than a gui. So either it is or it isn’t and that’s not really for me to say. But perforce is a (mainly) gui thing and was not “safe” from reimplementation. A deciding factor may have been that perforce is licensed software; but it could have just of easily been because google wanted better integrations. Both are true for Docker for Desktop
    - yawaramin 5y ago
      They also have a tendency to be facing problems and scale issues that are irrelevant to like 99% of other developers, so it's a moot point.
  - mbreese 5y ago
    I don’t doubt it. But not everyone works for those kind of companies. I’m also not sure which class of company outnumbers the other, but I think we’d both be surprised.
- david38 5y ago
  That’s not a risk. Show me a real company that doesn’t pay for any products and I’ll show you a thousand that do. Not pay for Docker? What are they going to do? Get everyone on AWS tomorrow? The cost and downtime for most places would be massive.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> From engineer's perspective the difference between a free tool and a "small fee" (in most companies) is not money. It's the fact that you now have to jump through provisioning hoops and ask for permission to use the tool. The difference in flexibility is enormous. So is the difference in cost to the business: if the fee is small per seat, then the big cost is the license administration overhead, not the license fee, so the induced cost can be much greater than the revenue the seller realizes.