2 years ago

Category: Software, Business, Kubernetes, Docker, apple

At the end of August, Docker announced that they would be changing the pricing for their popular Docker Desktop, a move that was met with a flurry of criticism on sites like Twitter and Hacker News, alongside discussions around potential alternatives. From the outside perspective, it might seem like an unpopular move, but last week, Docker begged to differ, as Docker CEO Scott Johnston wrote in a blog post that they had seen “overwhelming, positive support from our community, both individual developers and businesses” and that “support has been so overwhelmingly positive that we’re able to accelerate our investment and delivery of several highly-requested Docker Desktop features in our public roadmap.”

As for the prospect of companies actually switching away from Docker Desktop to make use of their own open source alternatives, Johnston said that, at version 4.0, the company has received so much feedback and done so much in response, that he didn’t think it was likely.

Johnston also pointed to a recent Gartner by analyst Fintan Ryan report on how companies should manage the recent licensing changes to Docker Desktop, and noting that the report “came down very solidly in terms of ROI, in terms of having developers spend time building apps for the business versus spending time DIY-ing their local environment and maintaining that environment” and all of the associated costs regarding security and engineering resources.

As for those “highly-requested Docker Desktop features,” they include a developer preview of Docker Desktop for Linux, with general availability expected by the end of January 2022, the addition of Docker Desktop Volume Management to the free Docker Personal tier, and the accelerated general availability of Docker Compose 2.0.