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The third sentence in their apology is "This impacted less than 2% of our users." What is that supposed to convey? It feels like a handwave. 'We're sorry we mi

The third sentence in their apology is "This impacted less than 2% of our users." What is that supposed to convey? It feels like a handwave. 'We're sorry we mistreated you, look how small you are to us.'

phphphphp 4y ago
The 2% they’re referring to are businesses that are using Docker’s hosted services for free. The majority of the outrage was from people thinking about the non-business users, that is, open source projects, which Docker unintentionally implied would be impacted by this change. Docker are apologising for their poor communication which made people think this change applied to more than just a tiny portion of the user base (who are probably happy to pay). They’re not apologising for the change.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  > Less than 2% of Docker users have a Free Team organization on their account. I don't think so. The quote above is what they say on that page, and I think that is a pretty useless metric. It affects 2% of all Docker Hub users, 100% of all Free Team users.
- lozenge 4y ago
  Anybody who uses "docker pull" or "FROM" and not pointing at their own hosting or their own paid Docker account was affected as evidenced by the thousands of comments worried about the impact.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    Well, they say they were never actually affected > We’d also like to clarify that public images will only be removed from Docker Hub if their maintainer decides to delete them. > Will open source images I rely on get deleted? > Not by Docker. Public images will only disappear if the maintainer of the image decides to proactively delete it from Docker Hub. If the maintainer takes no action, we will continue to distribute their public images. People may have thought they were affected, which is what they seem to be apoligising for.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      They also are saying the maintainers will be unable to update the images after the 30 days. So the panic and bitching are perfectly deserved: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188691
      - SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
        For TEAM accounts that aren't "Docker sponsored open source" teams. They should allow a TEAM->PERSONAL conversion for any open source account that doesn't qualify to be "Docker sponsored." But really this is a communications fail more than anything.
  - SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
    No. This was NEVER implied at all. This only ever applied to the *Team* accounts. I have a paid non-team/personal account, but I am also aware that I could have a free personal account if I didn't need private repositories. In other words, they weren't clear enough in their communication, which is what they're apologizing for. But the internet outrage mob is going to yell about the evil of The Man no matter what I say, so I don't know why I bother...
afarrell 4y ago
One of the difficulties of public relations is communicating to multiple audiences at once. One of Docker’s audiences are the paying customers who outside that 2% and would want some assurance that if docker makes errors, those errors are smaller in magnitude. This statement seems like it is aimed at assuaging the worries of that audience. Is it good practice? I do not know.
- dheera 4y ago
  > One of the difficulties of public relations is communicating to multiple audiences at once. Why not just release multiple statements and links? "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a open source developer" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a closed source developer" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are an executive who can't code" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a billionaire who invested in Docker but secretly don't know what it is" etc.
  - hawski 4y ago
    ChatGPT> Could you rephrase the PR statement to the ad profile of this HTTP client?
  - hk__2 4y ago
    What if you are a "closed source developer" at work but an open-source one during your free time? What if you are a billionaire codes? What if… etc. You could make TL;DR's targeted at specific audiences, but you still need the same introduction for everyone.
  - bleuchase 4y ago
    Is that a serious suggestion? Who on earth would take the time to look through all of those to see which one best fits them? Companies have enough trouble getting press releases read already.
    - dheera 4y ago
      I guess then you could use some heuristics and ChatGPT to tailor the press release to the particular viewer. For example if the user has a screen resolution of three 4K monitors side by side, using Linux, and coming from a Silicon Valley IP address, they are probably a developer. If they have the screen resolution of an iPad Pro and a New York IP address they are probably an executive on the go. The HTML5 accelerometer API might also say something about whether they're reading your press release in bed, while sitting, or standing. Use ChatGPT to reword the press release appropriately.
tylersmith 4y ago
I think that was an attempt to describe that the change won't delete tons of projects like many believed, and break downstream users, not that it was too small of a group to care about.
bobleeswagger 4y ago
> 'We're sorry we mistreated you, look how small you are to us.' They could choose not to share any data, which is what most companies default to. You're complaining about something so small as if they aren't handling this entire thing beautifully at this point. They noticed their mistake, and corrected it swiftly to keep the community from bifurcating. What else do you want, exactly?
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  > What else do you want, exactly? There's a world of difference between "This impacted less than 2% of our users." and "This impacted about 2% of our users." The first implies that they have up to 2% of users which they don't respect, and undermines their apology. I agree that it's good that they responded quickly, and I know there's a tradeoff between fast and perfect.
  - burnished 4y ago
    How is that your read here? It feels completely arbitrary
  - bobleeswagger 4y ago
    > There's a world of difference between No there isn't. This is entirely subjective and you're acting like they said "Fuck our customers" when they just shared data. Anything you want to imply beyond that says more about you than it does about any part of Docker. > The first implies that they have up to 2% of users which they don't respect, and undermines their apology. Where does this implication come from? Why is Docker not given the benefit of the doubt when they are already extending an olive branch...? This isn't Microsoft. I guess if you want to change things, you should shoot for a position in PR at docker. Otherwise, you look like a rube for acting as though they "could have done better with one sentence." I bet you're fun at parties.
    - HelloNurse 4y ago
      They said they intend to delete customer data if they don't switch to paid plans: this means "fuck our customers", collectively and indiscriminately, not only the selected foreclosed accounts but everybody that depends on them.
abscind 4y ago
Agreed. It's frustrating to see companies try to downplay the impact of their mistakes by using statistics like "less than 2% of our users." Companies NEED to take responsibility for their actions and show genuine empathy for those affected, rather than trying to minimize the impact of their mistakes with vague statistics.
packetslave 4y ago
Ever wonder why Google outage notifications always say stuff like "this impacted 0.01752% of users"? Because if they leave that out, the PR department ends up flooded with questions from reporters about "how bad was this outage, exactly?", and less-diligent publications running "Google suffers massive outage" headlines.
- tyingq 4y ago
  It's really misleading though, as it only reflect the owners of the images. Presumably I should count as an affected user if I don't own the image, but try to download it.
  - wizzwizz4 4y ago
    I think that's what they're trying to say: you're not an affected user if it's not your image, because you can't download it in the first place.
    - tyingq 4y ago
      Meaning I can't download it because their account was zapped after the 30 days? I could certainly download it before all this.
      - nmjohn 4y ago
        Nope - public images are not affected - you never would have been able to download a relevant image if you weren't in the private org.
        tyingq 4y ago
        I'm still confused. As I understood, for example, "httptookit" is one of the affected accounts. They have public images here: https://hub.docker.com/u/httptoolkit https://hub.docker.com/u/httptoolkit The original announcement said: > If you don't upgrade to a paid subscription, Docker will retain your organization data for 30 days, after which it will be subject to deletion. During that period you will maintain access to any of your public images. That sounds a lot like the public images were subject to deletion. At the very least, subject to being frozen in time and not updated/updateable, which can be worse in some cases.
tyingq 4y ago
The most favorable percentage possible, probably. Rather than percentage of requests, percentage of active users, etc.
foxbee 4y ago
This is how i interpreted this. I feel this was a box ticking exercise with 0 emotion.
slantedview 4y ago
The "2% of our users" is indeed misleading since most users don't run organizations, and it's mainly orgs that were affected. A better metric would be what % of orgs were impacted.
perbu 4y ago
I'm guessing this sentence is aimed at current and future investors.
- floatinglotus 4y ago
  Is it even possible that there will be future investors?
xp84 4y ago
(Note: I'm neutral on the main issue of whether Docker's moves are evil, etc. I don't really care) To me this "This impacted less than x%" business is more of a classic Apple damage control PR statement, designed to convey to the whole userbase, "You almost definitely aren't affected, it's just a tiny number of whiners making all this fuss, and look how small they are!"
femto113 4y ago
It's worse than just handwaving, it's straight up nonsensical. Perhaps it is literally true that only 2% of distinct accounts that log into Docker Hub have this plan, but for the vast majority of people "using Docker Hub" means "pulling public images from Docker Hub", not "logging into Docker Hub", so by a more reasonable criteria (say % of images pulled) I'm sure its at least an order of magnitude greater.
- trinsic2 4y ago
  Yea. I don't think its necessary to even add that part since it seems the only reason they are responding is due to the negative backlash from the open source community. The fact that they added the % appears to me as an attempt to marginalize and compartmentalize the perception of this decision so it doesn't spread into the perception of their paying customers. Good luck with that.
golem14 4y ago
Also, the 2% of the impacted users might have 50% of _all_ users as a dependency (just throwing out a random number for illustration), so I'm not sure that the "2% users" messaging matters to the recipients of that PR.
ilyt 4y ago
They are trying to use small number they conjured from the statistics to diminish the scale of the problem. 99% it is "the number of accounts affected" and not anything to do with number of downloads of images hosted there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

phphphphp 4y ago

The 2% they’re referring to are businesses that are using Docker’s hosted services for free. The majority of the outrage was from people thinking about the non-business users, that is, open source projects, which Docker unintentionally implied would be impacted by this change. Docker are apologising for their poor communication which made people think this change applied to more than just a tiny portion of the user base (who are probably happy to pay). They’re not apologising for the change.

fabian2k 4y ago
> Less than 2% of Docker users have a Free Team organization on their account. I don't think so. The quote above is what they say on that page, and I think that is a pretty useless metric. It affects 2% of all Docker Hub users, 100% of all Free Team users.
lozenge 4y ago
Anybody who uses "docker pull" or "FROM" and not pointing at their own hosting or their own paid Docker account was affected as evidenced by the thousands of comments worried about the impact.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  Well, they say they were never actually affected > We’d also like to clarify that public images will only be removed from Docker Hub if their maintainer decides to delete them. > Will open source images I rely on get deleted? > Not by Docker. Public images will only disappear if the maintainer of the image decides to proactively delete it from Docker Hub. If the maintainer takes no action, we will continue to distribute their public images. People may have thought they were affected, which is what they seem to be apoligising for.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    They also are saying the maintainers will be unable to update the images after the 30 days. So the panic and bitching are perfectly deserved: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35188691
    - SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
      For TEAM accounts that aren't "Docker sponsored open source" teams. They should allow a TEAM->PERSONAL conversion for any open source account that doesn't qualify to be "Docker sponsored." But really this is a communications fail more than anything.
- SomeCallMeTim 4y ago
  No. This was NEVER implied at all. This only ever applied to the *Team* accounts. I have a paid non-team/personal account, but I am also aware that I could have a free personal account if I didn't need private repositories. In other words, they weren't clear enough in their communication, which is what they're apologizing for. But the internet outrage mob is going to yell about the evil of The Man no matter what I say, so I don't know why I bother...

afarrell 4y ago

One of the difficulties of public relations is communicating to multiple audiences at once. One of Docker’s audiences are the paying customers who outside that 2% and would want some assurance that if docker makes errors, those errors are smaller in magnitude. This statement seems like it is aimed at assuaging the worries of that audience. Is it good practice? I do not know.

dheera 4y ago
> One of the difficulties of public relations is communicating to multiple audiences at once. Why not just release multiple statements and links? "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a open source developer" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a closed source developer" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are an executive who can't code" "Click here for customized PR statement if you are a billionaire who invested in Docker but secretly don't know what it is" etc.
- hawski 4y ago
  ChatGPT> Could you rephrase the PR statement to the ad profile of this HTTP client?
- hk__2 4y ago
  What if you are a "closed source developer" at work but an open-source one during your free time? What if you are a billionaire codes? What if… etc. You could make TL;DR's targeted at specific audiences, but you still need the same introduction for everyone.
- bleuchase 4y ago
  Is that a serious suggestion? Who on earth would take the time to look through all of those to see which one best fits them? Companies have enough trouble getting press releases read already.
  - dheera 4y ago
    I guess then you could use some heuristics and ChatGPT to tailor the press release to the particular viewer. For example if the user has a screen resolution of three 4K monitors side by side, using Linux, and coming from a Silicon Valley IP address, they are probably a developer. If they have the screen resolution of an iPad Pro and a New York IP address they are probably an executive on the go. The HTML5 accelerometer API might also say something about whether they're reading your press release in bed, while sitting, or standing. Use ChatGPT to reword the press release appropriately.

tylersmith 4y ago

I think that was an attempt to describe that the change won't delete tons of projects like many believed, and break downstream users, not that it was too small of a group to care about.

bobleeswagger 4y ago

> 'We're sorry we mistreated you, look how small you are to us.' They could choose not to share any data, which is what most companies default to. You're complaining about something so small as if they aren't handling this entire thing beautifully at this point. They noticed their mistake, and corrected it swiftly to keep the community from bifurcating. What else do you want, exactly?

foobarbecue 4y ago
> What else do you want, exactly? There's a world of difference between "This impacted less than 2% of our users." and "This impacted about 2% of our users." The first implies that they have up to 2% of users which they don't respect, and undermines their apology. I agree that it's good that they responded quickly, and I know there's a tradeoff between fast and perfect.
- burnished 4y ago
  How is that your read here? It feels completely arbitrary
- bobleeswagger 4y ago
  > There's a world of difference between No there isn't. This is entirely subjective and you're acting like they said "Fuck our customers" when they just shared data. Anything you want to imply beyond that says more about you than it does about any part of Docker. > The first implies that they have up to 2% of users which they don't respect, and undermines their apology. Where does this implication come from? Why is Docker not given the benefit of the doubt when they are already extending an olive branch...? This isn't Microsoft. I guess if you want to change things, you should shoot for a position in PR at docker. Otherwise, you look like a rube for acting as though they "could have done better with one sentence." I bet you're fun at parties.
  - HelloNurse 4y ago
    They said they intend to delete customer data if they don't switch to paid plans: this means "fuck our customers", collectively and indiscriminately, not only the selected foreclosed accounts but everybody that depends on them.

abscind 4y ago

Agreed. It's frustrating to see companies try to downplay the impact of their mistakes by using statistics like "less than 2% of our users." Companies NEED to take responsibility for their actions and show genuine empathy for those affected, rather than trying to minimize the impact of their mistakes with vague statistics.

packetslave 4y ago

Ever wonder why Google outage notifications always say stuff like "this impacted 0.01752% of users"? Because if they leave that out, the PR department ends up flooded with questions from reporters about "how bad was this outage, exactly?", and less-diligent publications running "Google suffers massive outage" headlines.

tyingq 4y ago
It's really misleading though, as it only reflect the owners of the images. Presumably I should count as an affected user if I don't own the image, but try to download it.
- wizzwizz4 4y ago
  I think that's what they're trying to say: you're not an affected user if it's not your image, because you can't download it in the first place.
  - tyingq 4y ago
    Meaning I can't download it because their account was zapped after the 30 days? I could certainly download it before all this.
    - nmjohn 4y ago
      Nope - public images are not affected - you never would have been able to download a relevant image if you weren't in the private org.
      - tyingq 4y ago
        I'm still confused. As I understood, for example, "httptookit" is one of the affected accounts. They have public images here: https://hub.docker.com/u/httptoolkit https://hub.docker.com/u/httptoolkit The original announcement said: > If you don't upgrade to a paid subscription, Docker will retain your organization data for 30 days, after which it will be subject to deletion. During that period you will maintain access to any of your public images. That sounds a lot like the public images were subject to deletion. At the very least, subject to being frozen in time and not updated/updateable, which can be worse in some cases.

tyingq 4y ago

The most favorable percentage possible, probably. Rather than percentage of requests, percentage of active users, etc.

foxbee 4y ago

This is how i interpreted this. I feel this was a box ticking exercise with 0 emotion.

slantedview 4y ago

The "2% of our users" is indeed misleading since most users don't run organizations, and it's mainly orgs that were affected. A better metric would be what % of orgs were impacted.

perbu 4y ago

I'm guessing this sentence is aimed at current and future investors.

floatinglotus 4y ago
Is it even possible that there will be future investors?

xp84 4y ago

(Note: I'm neutral on the main issue of whether Docker's moves are evil, etc. I don't really care) To me this "This impacted less than x%" business is more of a classic Apple damage control PR statement, designed to convey to the whole userbase, "You almost definitely aren't affected, it's just a tiny number of whiners making all this fuss, and look how small they are!"

femto113 4y ago

It's worse than just handwaving, it's straight up nonsensical. Perhaps it is literally true that only 2% of distinct accounts that log into Docker Hub have this plan, but for the vast majority of people "using Docker Hub" means "pulling public images from Docker Hub", not "logging into Docker Hub", so by a more reasonable criteria (say % of images pulled) I'm sure its at least an order of magnitude greater.

trinsic2 4y ago
Yea. I don't think its necessary to even add that part since it seems the only reason they are responding is due to the negative backlash from the open source community. The fact that they added the % appears to me as an attempt to marginalize and compartmentalize the perception of this decision so it doesn't spread into the perception of their paying customers. Good luck with that.

golem14 4y ago

Also, the 2% of the impacted users might have 50% of _all_ users as a dependency (just throwing out a random number for illustration), so I'm not sure that the "2% users" messaging matters to the recipients of that PR.

ilyt 4y ago

They are trying to use small number they conjured from the statistics to diminish the scale of the problem. 99% it is "the number of accounts affected" and not anything to do with number of downloads of images hosted there.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]