7 ms·

Ah, good ole Docker. When they did the "it's not free anymore" rugpull on Docker Desktop, I couldn't use it at work anymore since they wouldn't invoice us for

by WWLink 4y ago

Ah, good ole Docker. When they did the "it's not free anymore" rugpull on Docker Desktop, I couldn't use it at work anymore since they wouldn't invoice us for less than a 50 seat license. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses won't buy things without invoicing for legal reasons. It really upset me because I had a pretty solid workflow with docker desktop on a mac. Now I can't use that anymore. I am not surprised they continue to make foolish moves trying to monetize their software. I get it, you need to monetize your software... but this is dumb.

pnw 4y ago
I get invoices for my $5 Pro plan. Do you mean they wouldn't take the order on credit?
- InvaderFizz 4y ago
  Probably means they would not do NET30 or the like terms to fit with their corporate purchasing workflow.
  - pnw 4y ago
    Pretty hard to get NET30 invoicing on a transaction which is less than $450, especially if you've chosen the monthly plan. It's just not worth the labor chasing an unpaid $450 invoice every damn month.
    - xen2xen1 4y ago
      Isn't that what resellers are for?
- Volundr 4y ago
  I assume they mean Docker issues an invoice which the company's AP department can then pay by either cutting a check or ACH transfer. At least that's what we had to get all our vendors to start doing when the company I worked for killed off corporate cards and quit letting employees expense things like this.
  - tobyjsullivan 4y ago
    I have many issues with Docker the business but, have to say, this situation sounds like they might not be the problem quite as much as the employer.
    - Volundr 4y ago
      Meh maybe. But it's actually a pretty common restriction for whatever reason in large enterprises, and not something your average dev can influence.
MandieD 4y ago
Hey! They decided to do invoicing, after all! When they couldn't find a way to take purchase orders in the initial license obligation round and we were going to have to go through a third party licensing service to pay, we did a little math, and realized that it was cheaper to let one of the guys on the DevOps team create and maintain the customized WSL install option, with the bonus of steering the developers to our internal registry out of the box, because we really don't want devs pulling stuff directly from Docker Hub without any sort of traceability, much less (shudder) pushing anything there. The prospect of having to manage hundreds (or more) of user accounts with SSO "on the roadmap, pinky swear" pushed the math over the top. Many months later, this is still proving to have been a good call. Moral of the story: do not try to shove a category change on large corporations without having basic things large corporations routinely require in order to give you money, especially if replacing you requires a lot less spend on extra internal labor and material than you're demanding to be paid.
- WWLink 4y ago
  Yea the WSL option is what most places I know are doing. Unfortunately, I like using MacOS so it won't work for me haha. I don't trust the team writing the generic free version for Macs.
strictnein 4y ago
On the other side of the spectrum, working somewhere that would have purchased thousands of licenses, they were equally unaware of what larger corporations want or need for such arrangements.
- MandieD 4y ago
  They were so blinded by giant dollar/Euro signs when insisting that we take loads of those ~20/month licenses that included a lot of things that are anti-features to most enterprises (we need to prevent people from pulling/pushing to Docker Hub!) but left out things that would make it less miserable (SSO/SAML), that they couldn't see that absolutely no one was going to put five figures on their corporate card each month. I see that they now have those things, but it would have been very clever to have asked a few potential customers about these things ahead of time, and made sure they had them as soon as they stuck their hands out... or had a few ex-corporate types around to run this all by before telling us that we will be buying Docker licenses within 120 days for everyone who happens to have Docker Desktop installed. At least they were savvy enough to realize that large companies couldn't have begun to cope with much less notice, but as it was, the rough start with a looming deadline was enough motivation to get us trying alternatives right away.
YuriNiyazov 4y ago
Ah, the good ole "my company won't pay for a $5/month tool that I like because the tool maker won't invoice my company for less than 50 users, so instead of paying $5/month myself on my credit card, I literally 'can't use it anymore' out of principle."
- floatinglotus 4y ago
  That’s not the problem. The problem is that companies forbid their employees from using it if they can’t pay for it.
  - jussij 4y ago
    And surely that's a problem for the employee's company, only because they're the ones imposing the restriction, not some external third party.
    - MandieD 4y ago
      Big companies have people around whose sole job is to make sure that all software that needs to be licensed, is licensed, and that these licenses are the exact ones that meet the providers' rules. This usually means that you are not allowed to use a personally-owned license on a company computer. Why? Because the consequences of getting this wrong can be far more expensive than whatever productivity gains you, the individual employee, claim to be achieving. Docker, for example: we had absolutely no interest in individual users directly accessing their online features (we took a bit of trouble to block them, in fact), so theoretically, the free Personal licenses should have been fine. No. Ok, so just have each Docker user pay that $5 themselves. How do we make sure every person who has Docker installed on their PC really is paying for a license? Even if we gave them all corporate cards, and Docker was going to be cool with several hundred accounts (or more) from the same domain not being on the "Business" plan, we then get to set up a process with Accounting to make sure the PC scans match the payments. This might all sound ridiculous to start-up/boutique employees, but is a basic fact of life in corporate IT... which Docker was hoping to get a lot of money out of.
solarkraft 4y ago
What's the workflow? What more is Docker Desktop than a way to get the Docker CLI on non-Linux machines?

by WWLink 4y ago

pnw 4y ago

I get invoices for my $5 Pro plan. Do you mean they wouldn't take the order on credit?

InvaderFizz 4y ago
Probably means they would not do NET30 or the like terms to fit with their corporate purchasing workflow.
- pnw 4y ago
  Pretty hard to get NET30 invoicing on a transaction which is less than $450, especially if you've chosen the monthly plan. It's just not worth the labor chasing an unpaid $450 invoice every damn month.
  - xen2xen1 4y ago
    Isn't that what resellers are for?
Volundr 4y ago
I assume they mean Docker issues an invoice which the company's AP department can then pay by either cutting a check or ACH transfer. At least that's what we had to get all our vendors to start doing when the company I worked for killed off corporate cards and quit letting employees expense things like this.
- tobyjsullivan 4y ago
  I have many issues with Docker the business but, have to say, this situation sounds like they might not be the problem quite as much as the employer.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    Meh maybe. But it's actually a pretty common restriction for whatever reason in large enterprises, and not something your average dev can influence.

MandieD 4y ago

Hey! They decided to do invoicing, after all! When they couldn't find a way to take purchase orders in the initial license obligation round and we were going to have to go through a third party licensing service to pay, we did a little math, and realized that it was cheaper to let one of the guys on the DevOps team create and maintain the customized WSL install option, with the bonus of steering the developers to our internal registry out of the box, because we really don't want devs pulling stuff directly from Docker Hub without any sort of traceability, much less (shudder) pushing anything there. The prospect of having to manage hundreds (or more) of user accounts with SSO "on the roadmap, pinky swear" pushed the math over the top. Many months later, this is still proving to have been a good call. Moral of the story: do not try to shove a category change on large corporations without having basic things large corporations routinely require in order to give you money, especially if replacing you requires a lot less spend on extra internal labor and material than you're demanding to be paid.

WWLink 4y ago
Yea the WSL option is what most places I know are doing. Unfortunately, I like using MacOS so it won't work for me haha. I don't trust the team writing the generic free version for Macs.

strictnein 4y ago

On the other side of the spectrum, working somewhere that would have purchased thousands of licenses, they were equally unaware of what larger corporations want or need for such arrangements.

MandieD 4y ago
They were so blinded by giant dollar/Euro signs when insisting that we take loads of those ~20/month licenses that included a lot of things that are anti-features to most enterprises (we need to prevent people from pulling/pushing to Docker Hub!) but left out things that would make it less miserable (SSO/SAML), that they couldn't see that absolutely no one was going to put five figures on their corporate card each month. I see that they now have those things, but it would have been very clever to have asked a few potential customers about these things ahead of time, and made sure they had them as soon as they stuck their hands out... or had a few ex-corporate types around to run this all by before telling us that we will be buying Docker licenses within 120 days for everyone who happens to have Docker Desktop installed. At least they were savvy enough to realize that large companies couldn't have begun to cope with much less notice, but as it was, the rough start with a looming deadline was enough motivation to get us trying alternatives right away.

YuriNiyazov 4y ago

Ah, the good ole "my company won't pay for a $5/month tool that I like because the tool maker won't invoice my company for less than 50 users, so instead of paying $5/month myself on my credit card, I literally 'can't use it anymore' out of principle."

floatinglotus 4y ago
That’s not the problem. The problem is that companies forbid their employees from using it if they can’t pay for it.
- jussij 4y ago
  And surely that's a problem for the employee's company, only because they're the ones imposing the restriction, not some external third party.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    Big companies have people around whose sole job is to make sure that all software that needs to be licensed, is licensed, and that these licenses are the exact ones that meet the providers' rules. This usually means that you are not allowed to use a personally-owned license on a company computer. Why? Because the consequences of getting this wrong can be far more expensive than whatever productivity gains you, the individual employee, claim to be achieving. Docker, for example: we had absolutely no interest in individual users directly accessing their online features (we took a bit of trouble to block them, in fact), so theoretically, the free Personal licenses should have been fine. No. Ok, so just have each Docker user pay that $5 themselves. How do we make sure every person who has Docker installed on their PC really is paying for a license? Even if we gave them all corporate cards, and Docker was going to be cool with several hundred accounts (or more) from the same domain not being on the "Business" plan, we then get to set up a process with Accounting to make sure the PC scans match the payments. This might all sound ridiculous to start-up/boutique employees, but is a basic fact of life in corporate IT... which Docker was hoping to get a lot of money out of.

solarkraft 4y ago

What's the workflow? What more is Docker Desktop than a way to get the Docker CLI on non-Linux machines?