For those wondering what I mean, last week Docker announced that it was ending its “Free Teams” plan. The open source community took the announcement as “pay or read the data”. As the backlash from the open source community grew, Docker said, “We made a mistake by announcing the end of the Docker Team free plan.” quickly apologized.
Although they were quick to apologize, they failed to quell the backlash. an user “The open source community was appalled not by how Docker communicated, but by what it communicated and how it did things,” he said.
According to Docker CEO Scott Johnston, the decision to end the free Teams plan was not a nefarious plan to force open source projects to pay. If so, Johnston would not be qualified to be CEO. Free team subscribers represent less than 1.8% of all Docker users. No CEO would try to optimize profits by targeting rounding errors on the income statement.
Rather, the decision is Docker’s journey to refocus its business on developers.
Was Docker trying to drive customers away from the free Teams plan?
As some wrongly claim If Docker was going to shake up open source projects (at $420 per year!), then you’ll get better benefits than the free Teams plan (eg no fee caps, improved Docker Hub search capabilities, improved analytics). etc.) provide Sponsored Open Source Pricing (SOS)would not have provided All of this is provided free of charge. “This creates a better experience not only for developers of open source projects, but also for end users of this software,” Johnston said.
On the other hand, the free Teams plan “targeted many different types of customers and users, but didn’t do a particularly good job for everyone,” Johnston said.
Was Docker trying to drive customers away from the free Teams plan? Yes. That’s what I was trying to do with this change. But did that mean they were trying to force you to pay $420 a year for an open source project? Johnston noted that the intention was to facilitate the transition from open source projects to sponsored open source programs. “You have nothing to do with the account. All you have to do is apply,” he added.
Several developers have reported that they’ve applied for sponsored open-source programs but been rejected or not heard from, but the company said it’s getting better.
“Provides a guided experience”
The question then arises as to how this fits into Docker’s business plan. I don’t want to break the bad news to open source conspiracy theorists, but if Docker is trying to increase revenue, targeting a tiny percentage of users (free team subscribers) is not a good way to achieve this goal. It’s also not a good idea to target notoriously cash-strapped open source projects. So if you blame the less than 2% of users who have short bank balances for greedily increasing sales, you’ll have to find another villain. The claim that “Docker is trying to squeeze an open source project!” ” no sense.
In November 2019, Docker underwent an incredibly painful restructuring. Docker realized back then that the company’s future was its developers, Johnston said. It meant a different mindset, a different revenue model. Docker sold a significant portion of its business to Mirantis, leaving some employees behind to seek new developer-centric direction. Docker Enterprise and Swarm are gone, focusing instead on application speed and security.
Today, Docker automatically generates the SBOM without the developer having to do anything, helping developers understand what’s inside the container. Then, before the image is built, it automatically indexes all packages that go into that image and checks it against a public CVE database to indicate that an upgrade is needed (for example, if the latest version does not have a CVE).
The goal is to “provide a ‘guided experience’ for developers to make smart decisions locally on their laptops”. A subscription model is offered at a much lower price. Indeed, it is aimed at developers and focuses on developer productivity. Therefore, claims of trying to destroy open source projects or open source developers are completely unfounded. I admit I made a few mistakes in the way I communicated, but I can fully understand Docker’s intentions when I look at the decision in terms of “guided experience” value and Docker’s pragmatic approach. Of course, contrary to intent, it was not delivered and executed correctly.
One of Docker’s values, “Open Collaboration”, is reflected in the way the company collects feedback. First, Docker publishes its roadmap on GitHub. Developers can leave comments on the roadmap, and executives review comments at least once a week, Johnston said. Second, Docker has an external Docker Captain, similar to a Microsoft MVP or AWS Hero, who champions Docker while providing feedback. Third, Docker seeks guidance on product direction from a technical advisory group of approximately 10 external senior technical experts.
Haven’t these “collaborators” noticed the issues with the end of the free team plan? And like any other business, the key is not what you are doing at any given time, but the direction over time.
If we look at Docker in 2019 and beyond in this context, we can conclude that it is a company that takes its developers seriously and continues to look for ways to increase developer productivity. To criticize Docker for this decision would be to ignore how much Docker has changed and continues to change as a developer-centric company.
editor@itworld.co.kr
