on docker, open source, community, github

Coming up with a title that explains the full story here was difficult, so I’m going to try to explain quickly.

Yesterday, Docker sent an email to all Docker Hub users explaining that anyone who has created an “organisation” will have their account deleted including all images, if they do not upgrade to a paid team plan. The email contained a link to a tersely written PDF (since, silently edited) which was missing many important details which caused significant anxiety and additional work for open source maintainers.

As far as we know, this only affects organisation accounts that are often used by open source communities. There was no change to personal accounts. Free personal accounts have a a 6 month retention period.

Why is this a problem?

  1. Paid team plans cost 420USD per year (paid monthly)
  2. Many open source projects including ones I maintain have published images to the Docker Hub for years
  3. Docker’s Open Source program is hostile and out of touch

Why should you listen to me?

I was one of the biggest advocates around for Docker, speaking at their events, contributing to their projects and being a loyal member of their voluntary influencer program “Docker Captains“. I have written dozens if not hundreds of articles and code samples on Docker as a technology.

I’m not one of those people who think that all software and services should be free. I pay for a personal account, not because I publish images there anymore, but because I need to pull images like the base image for Go, or Node.js as part of my daily open source work.

When one of our OpenFaaS customers grumbled about paying for Docker Desktop, and wanted to spend several weeks trying to get Podman or Rancher Desktop working, I had to bite my tongue. If you’re using a Mac or a Windows machine, it’s worth paying for in my opinion. But that is a different matter.

Having known Docker’s new CTO personally for a very long time, I was surprised how out of touch the communication was.

I’m not the only one, you can read the reactions on Twitter (including many quote tweets) and on Hacker News.

Let’s go over each point, then explore options for moving forward with alternatives and resolutions.

The issues

  1. The cost of an organisation that hosts public images has risen from 0 USD / year to 420 USD / year. Many open source projects receive little to no funding. I would understand if Docker wanted to clamp down on private repos, because what open source repository needs them? I would understand if they applied this to new organisations.

  2. Many open source projects have published images to the Docker Hub in this way for years, openfaas as far back as 2016. Anyone could cybersquat the image and publish malicious content. The OpenFaaS project now publishes its free Community Edition images to GitHub’s Container Registry, but we still see thousands of pulls of old images from the Docker Hub. Docker is holding us hostage here, if we don’t pay up, systems will break for many free users.

  3. Docker has a hostile and out of touch definition of what is allowable for their Open Source program. It rules out anything other than spare-time projects, or projects that have been wholly donated to an open-source foundation.

“Not have a pathway to commercialization. Your organization must not seek to make a profit through services or by charg