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I wonder if the Docker Hub could be their monetization vehicle. They become the "github" of the container world.

It may not justify the valuation they want.. which is another issue.




I believe that their business model is providing a proprietary fork of the Docker engine (along with a bunch of other proprietary tooling) to enterprises as well as support for it. I won't lie, it really bothers me that code I've helped write is being used in proprietary software.


Then don't contribute to projects whose license you don't agree with?


Personally I make all of the projects I make GPLv3-or-later. However, certain projects are of signficiant importance to the free software community that I consider the benefits to free software to outweigh the potential drawbacks by proprietary forks. Unfortunately, it still makes me feel unhappy about people taking my work and forking it under a proprietary license.


> I won't lie, it really bothers me that code I've helped write is being used in proprietary software.

Then you better don't contribute to anything that's not exactly GPL.


Or AGPL. This is a fair point, and I make all of the code I write GPL. Unfortunately, there is only one containerisation project that is under the GPL and only the core of it is under the GPL (LXC is [L]GPL but LXD is not). It's quite worrying that so few Golang projects (because for some reason every containerisation project is written in Golang seemingly in anger) are under the GPL.


Make it AGPL. The GPL can be circumvented by slapping an HTTP interface on the logic, which is how Google has gotten away with keeping so much private.


I've written about this before:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-...

TL;DR is that we have a lot of corporate open source now for infrastructure, but the golden age OSS end products people hoped for in the 90's/00's never really happened.


Note: "Open Source" does not have a philosophy[1]. The free software movement does (it has a philosophy based on software freedom), but the "open source" movement does not discuss any of the ethical reasons why users should have freedom (it only discusses practical issues). Personally I think that the "open source" split is one of the reasons that the state of free software is so worrying today.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....


That's a great point. The thing is, I don't see them as getting serious about it. For example, quay.io provides better functionality around registry. Docker Hub is "good enough" and gets traction from the sheer fact that Docker runs it.




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