This should be cross posted to r/BeggingChoosers.
All the code required for this to work was already there. They only spent developer time changing it to only be available to Pro users.
You can rationalise this all you want, but this is just hostile, desperate and lazy behaviour from a company that's too desperate to make money, but is has continuously proven to be unable to come up with better ideas for attracting paid users. As others have mentioned, they got millions in funding so far but still have no idea how to make money.
Had it been announced a month earlier people would be sure it was an April Fool's joke.
Previously, ransomware (and some games/media) were tge only software products that asked for a higher price tag to not install extra code the user did not want on their machine.
It is a fundamentally predatory practice, because the developers completely misunderstand consent. Just because I have some or a version of your software running, doesn't mean I want to invite you the hypothetical software developer to live on my system, auto updating things from under me.
It's a pattern that has fought harder and harder amongst softdev people to ignore the sanctity of other people's computer for the user's own good that needs to die.
Not comparing it to ransomware is absurd, frankly. The more it's normalized, the more people will reach for it as a business model.
I'll tell you what's wrong here : Docker is a fantastic technology but it simply couldn't find a suitable market tactic.
Now it resolves to this shitty practices. I don't even know how you can begin to think that it would add ANY burden to them NOT to run the update on your computer.
And here is my problem : It's my computer, I decide what is ran on it or not.
Next day we have some idiot getting keys on the docker update system and we simply have built a technologic crash because suddenly nobody can decide wether that update is ran or not.
Keeping control away of the user is the most stupid thing there is.
Absolutely nothing docker has done contradicts this. You want docker desktop, you install docker desktop. You don’t, you don’t.
Docker has no obligation to provide a piece of software (for free!) with exactly the feature set you want. I can’t understand how anyone could think they do.
To clarify, you installed a piece of software with this capability. Thus, you did not install a piece of software you wanted.
Furthermore, Docker has the right to write software that functions and updates as they wish. You have the right to not install it. It's really that simple.
A lot of software today is auto-updating, where updates cannot be disabled, if they can even be delayed. It's the developers' choice whether they want their software to function like this, your choice whether you want to install it.
Sure it does. It updates the software automatically with seemingly no way of stopping the behavior without first paying a fee.
Regardless of the intent of the individual installing the software on their machine, once installed it absolutely executes on its own; there's no denying this.
How can you say they are lazy about that?
I think you’re underestimating the cost for a business to support clients that do not upgrade to the latest version of your software.
You’re not paying for the software to “do nothing”, you’re paying for the cost of Docker having a wider variety of software versions to support.
Docker doesn't have to support anything they don't want. They can support only the latest version and just refuse to support obsolete versions. They can even deprecate API endpoints for versions they don't want to use anymore and ask users to upgrade. They could even sell support for those obsolete versions. This is how a large part of the industry operates and a great strategy for making money.
Docker Desktop is an app that runs on local computers. Just as everyone doesn't want Google or Apple forcing things on them, I also don't want third-party software developers doing the same and risking breaking my workflow because they didn't give me the opportunity control and be careful about my upgrades.
This is entirely possible. I also work on a company that sells Desktop apps, but we sell to non-technical users. All those users understand that upgrading to the latest version is routine when you have issues.
I don’t need “support” to slowly triage, troubleshoot, and develop a fix when I know I can always fix the problem right now by downgrading.
I don’t need “bug fixes” or “stability improvements” when the only threat to stability is the updates. I just need it to stop fucking updating.
If I need it to do something new I’ll upgrade. By 99% of the time I need it to keep doing what it did yesterday.
I remember when the user was in control of their own computer, not rando 3rd party companies. I issue a command to the computer, and the computer executes the command. If I want to update a piece of software, I update it. I guess this is a dinosaur mentality now.
This whole "allow the software to do whatever the developer's company wants or stop using the software" trend is pretty nasty.
But sometime around the early 2000's businesses started exercising more control over the users.
I think it was basically the iphone that started a lot of bad precedents by removing the ability for the user to run his own software - both through he app store, and strict control by apple of what software could run on the phone.
I think this was initially done for security/piracy/etc, but the power grab self-propagated.
Apple thinks they are responsible for your iphone, but now they think they own it.
And when control was reverted to apple, they decided it was not important for people to see what was running on their phone, what it was doing, and who it was talking to.
At that point, software companies had more control over your phone than the users.
To me, the promise of computers got sort of tarnished - it's a little bit of a dark age.
When I hear of a new convenient feature, or smart-iot thing, I think that it will benefit the business and compromise the user.
But I still believe -- I think linux phones and tablets will be important checks and balances that can return control to the user and return to a more positive future.
People asked for the feature to be disabled. There was a lengthy discussion in GH [0] aptly named "Please don't upgrade docker without asking first" few months back regarding why this shouldn't happen (auto updates, that is).
Considering that the team that codes the software acknowledged they screwed up [1] having to pay for this I have to agree with the comment that says this amounts to ransomware. "Pay us or risk getting f*ked up by our updates".
[0] https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/183 [1] https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/183#issuecomment-74...
The solution to your problem is entirely in your hands, just hit that uninstall button.
I don't mind explaining something in more detail, just let me know what.
> The solution to your problem is entirely in your hands, just hit that uninstall button
Well, you might be correct here, but still having automatic updates as a paid feature seems a bit excessive.
Applying your logic, having to paid for such a basic feature is madness.
Don't forget people found out about this in the worst case possible. Imaging starting to use the app, then they introduce a breaking change and when you go researching you find out that you have to pay for avoiding breaking updates.
This doesn’t seem nearly as bad as that. They don’t want hundreds of different versions out there. As much as people claim otherwise they will get bug reports from old versions. Anyone that’s ever supported users knows that’s going to happen.
- Make it clear that only a certain version or a sliding window of versions is supported.
- Close reports from unsupported versions.
- Done.
Other projects/companies do this just fine last I checked.
Yesterday I grabbed a free book off a stoop in Brooklyn. Should I go on Twitter and trash the homeowner because there are pencil marks in it?
Would it still be okay if the update takes content away or otherwise makes the item less valuable? What if it introduces content you find objectionable, and don't want on you machine? Still okay?
No, it's not. That's ridiculous.
If you agree to give something away for free as part of your business strategy then you can make all the changes you want to future versions. You can even stop offering new downloads or updates for free at all. What you shouldn't be able to do is retroactively change the product you already gave me for free.
You made a business decision. If it later turns out it was a bad one then tough luck. I have rights as a consumer and as a human being. Yes, even if you give me something for free. To suggest otherwise is blatantly anti-consumer and morally bankrupt.
People are sharing their opinion on the direction of a popular software product. I'm confident they understand how to uninstall Docker if that was their intention. Continuously pointing out it's free like that's a valid defense is mind boggling.
> Yesterday I grabbed a free book off a stoop in Brooklyn. Should I go on Twitter and trash the homeowner because there are pencil marks in it?
For this to be valid, the homeowner who left the book out is demanding you pay them money otherwise they'll enter YOUR home and update the content of the book next time you try to read it. Of course this is completely acceptable because you can always throw the book away.
Nothing paid for sure but what happens when an auto update removes a feature you relied on previously? it's completely in their right to remove this feature from their product, it's their product, but it feels very disrespectful to potentially automatically remove working code from my machine unless I pay up.
I actually think the two sides to this argument completely come down to whether or not you see this as a "dick move" or not. I see it as a dick move, they have every right to do it, but now I'm looking for alternatives as dick moves usually predict more dick moves in the future.
Like, it’s not ransomware, but it’s not as if you can snap your fingers and move to something else.
Even if you can, that seems entirely counterproductive for the Docker company.
To my mind, the decision here shouldn't have been to make people pay protection money to stop a new release breaking their setup. They could make the whole damn thing paid-for instead and I'd be happier with that.
There is clearly something missing in their development and QA process that causes this auto-updating to be so visible and painful. They could have kept the feature as-is and worked on making sure new releases were solid, while also having a mechanism to revert.
I have no problem with my browser updating itself that way, as I never notice if something broken and got rolled back in the canary stage.
To be honest, avoiding criticism by whining about entitlement adds no more to the conversation than pure entitlement itself. I can't see any purpose it serves other than to start a flame war.
It's like, if you beg your friend to let you give them a lift and don't show up, you can't turn around and call them a "choosey beggar" because the lift was supposed to be free.
The response in that thread isn't _remotely_ reasonable, of course you can't make a developer tool like this auto-update.
They’re saying update OR your program is dead.
I think it's paternalistic and egotistical but the usual counterpoint is grandma getting a virus because Windows is unknowingly out of date. With developer tooling that holds a bit less water IMO.
As interest rates come up off the zero bound companies are increasingly going to have to learn how to make profits again. The culture this is out of touch with is not long for this world.
We have gotten more entitled and now when we see something that doesn't exactly meet our liking then we cry about it.