Docker is ending the old free membership of Docker Free Teams

The Docker company is going to remove one of its membership options. Users in that form can no longer access their data, unless they take out a paid membership. At first, images also seemed to be removed, but the company later changed their mind.

This concerns the Docker Free Teams membership. As the name suggests, it features multi-author access and the fact that it is free. This membership has not been available to new Docker users for some time; so only users who already had it before it was deprecated are now affected. The deadline for the migration is April 13.

The initial communication stated that ‘organization data’ for teams with this membership would be deleted after 30 days. The company later backtracked and clarified that that data will be deleted, but that the images will be left alone. Users on Hacker News criticize that this makes the ‘latest’ tag useless and dangerous; If the development team cannot switch to another membership, the images will no longer receive updates and the latest will automatically become outdated.

Docker says these teams may be able to move to Docker-Sponsored Open Source, or DSOS. In addition, the teams receive the Docker Team subscription for free for a year, but are never allowed to monetize their software. Only donations for running costs are allowed. You can also convert memberships to another subscription, but the Team membership costs at least $300 per year. Migrating to a free membership with fewer options is also possible; Docker says that users must create a support ticket for this.

Both users and developers maintaining repos at Docker are unhappy with the news. Developers say they are placed in a difficult situation, because of their images, but also the images of others on which they rely. Users are at risk because images they use could suddenly come to a standstill if the developer cannot successfully escape. And if the developer switches to Github’s Container Registry, for example, the URL of the image still needs to be adjusted, which also requires the end user to be informed.

Docker states in an update to its announcement that “only two percent of users are affected,” but that likely represents two percent of developers using Docker repos and not two percent of all Docker users, including clients that only use Docker. retrieve images. Images from two percent of repo maintainers can still experience a lot of pulls.

The issue is discussed, among others, in two posts on Hacker News, a blog post from a prominent member of the Docker community, one article on DevClass and a GitHub issue. Docker’s initial disclosure was an email that referred to a pdfbut there is also one additional disclosure done. The PDF has been updated from time to time, which may make comments on Docker’s actions appear outdated.

Docker is a platform where developers can host software images that users can use containers turn. The USP of this system is that the necessary dependencies for the software that is distributed can be bundled in the images. This means that even software originally developed for another operating system can run on Docker-supported platforms.