- the former is managed by the Docker Governance Advisory Board with people from many companies and individuals, see minute of the first meeting here for example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JfWNzfwptsMgSx82QyWH_Aj0...
- the latter is a company that naturally needs to be profitable.
In fact I'm surprised so many people find Docker Inc. developing a "platform" around Docker a change of direction, let alone unexpected.
It's nothing new and in fact I feel like Docker Inc choice is the "right" one: historically Commercial Open Source companies have had only a handful of choices to monetise: 1) selling support and services around the open source product, 2) going Open Core, 3) developing orthogonal, complementary commercial products around the main open source one and 4) be acquired :-D
RedHat is really the only one that managed to make option 1 work at scale and it looks like a black swan the longer time goes by. Option 2 was a bad idea to begin with a few years ago and I'm still surprised there are companies going for it today (I experienced it on my own skin). Option 4 is what it is.
So Option 3 is really the only reasonable way to go: keep the open source product really open source and make money with complementary products. I kind of expected this to be the way to go for Docker Inc all along, with a little niggle at the back of my mind fearing they would go for Open Core instead.
Examples:
* The docker hub gets special privileges in the image namespace. It isn't built on DNS but instead rooted in a namespace owned by Docker, Inc.
* The newly announced swarm depends on a discovery endpoint that (as far as I've seen) is closed source and undocumented.
I'd love to see the online parts of the OSS docker project have the same "firewall" as Solomon believe he holds for the OSS components.
The reason more people aren't paying for private indexes at this point is because the service is still slow and unreliable, and the UI needs serious work. With their current funding levels, fixing those items shouldn't be a problem. For comparison, Quay.io was able to do it with just a few engineers.
They're just being greedy and overreaching at this point.
To me, that actually shows that you don't have to rely on Docker Inc online services and are free to choose other options (that perhaps are better?)
1) Money is definitely not the case - docker is well capitalized. A special benefit of being in that situation is you don't have to do unnatural things like partner for money.
2) We welcome contributions from everyone, partners or not. Influence is gained by real contribution.
The reason we build partnerships is to ensure a few main things
#1 (and the biggest) Docker is made available on a wide variety of platforms, allowing developers and admins to work in native environments instead of fork-lifting to another just to try it out.
#2 Enable a network of services, products, systems integrator, IT vendors, etc. to have support, training, and other necessary things as they offer docker features in their products. This allows those who do not make containers and container services the core of their business, and instead focus on making/solving different problems.
I am more than happy to walk you or anyone else through partner strategy at any time. I'm easy to find.
Are you willing to share the contract details involved in these partner agreements? What do partners have to agree to in order to be an official partner?
