docker Docker wants to remove the "Free Team organizations" subscription

[Rayxcer]

Summary

 Docker wants to remove the "Free Team organizations" subscription, which will force (f)oss projects to a. not be able to use Docker or b. pay for a subscription.

Docker released a Statement, which seems to be a carefully worded non-apology, which leaves the foss-projects in the air about their docker-future.

 

Quotes from the email from Docker:

Quote

Free Team organizations are a legacy subscription tier that no longer exists. This tier included many of the same features, rates, and functionality as a paid Docker Team subscription.

[...]

If you own a legacy Free Team organization, access to paid features - including private repositories - will be suspended on April 14, 2023 (11:59pm UTC).

[...]

If you don't upgrade your subscription, Docker will retain your organization data for 30 days, after which it will be subject to deletion.

Qoute from dockers statement:

Quote

The Docker Free Team subscription was deprecated in part because it was poorly targeted. In particular, it didn’t serve the open source audience as well as our recently updated Docker-Sponsored Open Source program, the latter offering benefits that exceed those of the deprecated Free Team plan.

Quote

We’d also like to clarify that public images will only be removed from Docker Hub if their maintainer decides to delete them. We’re sorry that our initial communications failed to make this clear.

Furthermore, Docker stated the following regarding (f)oss projects:

Quote

Docker continues to offer a specific Docker-Sponsored Open Source (DSOS) program for open source projects, and it is not affected by the sunsetting of Free Team organizations. For new users interested in joining DSOS from a previous Free Team organization, we will defer any organization suspension or deletion while the DSOS application is under review.

[...]

We encourage all open source projects to apply, even if you were not accepted on a prior application, as we updated the program and expanded eligibility in September 2022. 

Many (f)oss projects fear that they might not be applicable for the "Docker-Sponsored Open Source program" even with the new guidelines for the "DSOS", which would force them to a. not use docker anymore or b. pay for a subscription.

 

Lastly, one of the criterias for the DSOS states the following:

Quote

To qualify for the program, your project namespace must:

[...]

• Not have a pathway to commercialization. Your organization must not seek to make a profit through services or by charging for higher tiers. Accepting donations to sustain your efforts is permissible.

This might be a problem for some projects.

 

My thoughts

 If I understand this evolving situation correctly, this might be a blow for many (f)oss projects which use docker. Even if this is a non-issue in the end (because all foss-projects will be accepted into the DSOS, which remains to be seen), the uncertainty is there.

 

Sources

Twitter-Post from Alex Ellis, founder of openfaas, publishing the email from Docker: 

 

Statement from Docker: https://www.docker.com/blog/we-apologize-we-did-a-terrible-job-announcing-the-end-of-docker-free-teams/

Docker-Sponsored Open Source program: https://www.docker.com/community/open-source/application/

 

Please be gentle with ( and correct) me if I got something wrong here. I tried to summerize it as best I could.

[Mihle]

Would Nextcloud fall under the open source DSOS? Seems like no?

What about third party dockers made for Nextcloud or something similar?

 

If it's affected then that is very shit.

(I don't know how it currently works, so inform me if I don't make sense)

[Thaldor]

Never build on goodwill.

 

I am often more surprised how many even big companies have missed that note that that some random dude's "hobby" project works as a base for systems worth of billions.

[Salv8 (sam)]

this is gonna hurt docker in the long run.

the amount of systems using open source software within a premade docker instance is very high, it's basically how modern day services that require high up time are run on servers.

the only other option out there is Kubernetes which did have docker compatibility in older versions but was removed in a update back in 2022.

i wouldn't be surprised to see some company's start to move to Kubernetes due to their reliance on open source software and even start to convert some in house docker containers into Kubernetes containers because maintaining only one is easier on the IT team.

[trag1c]

I could be wrong but this should only affect docker desktop (which is just a GUI) as everything else is under apache or similar IIRC. So you don't actually need a license as long as you don't use the GUI. So pretty much a non issue since the CLI exists and any half decent developer shouldn't have any issues with using the CLI.

[Needfuldoer]

12 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Never build on goodwill.

 

I am often more surprised how many even big companies have missed that note that that some random dude's "hobby" project works as a base for systems worth of billions.

People seem to think that once a FOSS project grows large enough, there's automatically an Apache Software Foundation or a GNU Project or a Red Hat or a Canonical behind it. Not so.

[Thaldor]

11 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

People seem to think that once a FOSS project grows large enough, there's automatically an Apache Software Foundation or a GNU Project or a Red Hat or a Canonical behind it. Not so.

Not only that but the massive braindead moment FOSS projects seem to have when it comes to read and understand someone else's licenses, Docker isn't the first case where some company has decided that their old licensing scheme sucks and they decide to renew it, they tell about it in good time so the teams relying on the old license have time to adopt to the new (Docker's DSOS license was released in 2020, so even the most hermitted FOSS project manager had good time to try to get into it and see if their little project can be modified to fit the criteria or even *gasp* negotiate with Docker to get into it even if their project doesn't meet the criteria), then tell that times up and people are still shocked by these very "new" twists. This goes a bit ranting but I am really shocked by how well couple FOSS project managers I know, know their own licensing and are building barricades the second someone is breaking them but when it comes to using someone else's code that is licensed and they don't follow the rules and hellfire starts to rain on them "Bbbbbut I have limited time and I need to use it to dev, I-i-i-i-i don't have time to read the licenses and work on them, why can't everyone just use this license?" and then comes the ultimate tantrum when you dare to say to them "And that is why I don't give my skills and time away for free but demand a pay which I can then use to pay someone else to read those licenses and keep track of them so I can concentrate to do what I do best".

 

But anyhow, the Docker DSOS licensing has been available since 2020 if someone didn't get the memo and is now panicking because their beloved license is going away, they can go and blame the mirror. They have had 2 years time to figure out if their project is eligible for DSOS and if not what they can/must do to be eligible.