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Comment by ericol | Hacker News Reader

People didn't "ask for this feature".

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...

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Ransomware holds your pictures, documents, data hostage unless you pay money. Nothing you paid for or created is being held hostage here.

The solution to your problem is entirely in your hands, just hit that uninstall button.

> Nothing you paid for or created is being held hostage here.

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.

Uh, you’ve been happily using docker for years and have your entire infra built on it, only to have the company suddenly decide that auto update is a great idea and break your stuff all the time?

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.

just pushes more people to podman, cri-o, etc.

Your critical infra runs on docker desktop?

Yes it does. It may not run on it in production but a lot of us use it locally to replicate production as closely as possible. If my local machine is broken because they pushed out yet another breaking change and FORCED me to upgrade from a working version to that broken version.

I didn't meant that literally.

> 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.

I grew up with shareware, nagware, and crippleware. It was annoying and we grumbled some but at the end of the day recognized that people were trying to make a living.

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.

> 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.

If that works for you, you should definitely run your business that way. Likewise, if you’re a customer of docker I’m sure they’ll be very happy to hear from you as to what it’ll will take to keep your business.

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?

Do the pencil marks randomly appear on pages you needed to read because the homeowner magically changed them remotely? Did the homeowner then tell you, that you could make it stop happening if you paid them? I think yeah, you should trash the homeowner for being a dick in that case. Sure, free book, and the homeowner assumedly thinks the book is better that way, but at what point does this 'free book' became the responsibility of the new owner? Where's the line between the as is, and as is but we're gonna randomly make it worse?

Let's use your analogy. Is it okay for a free ebook to remotely update (in a way that makes the version you previously downloaded gone forever)? How about a free documentary you downloaded? A textbook?

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.

Your whole series of replies has been "Docker can do whatever they want, don't like it? Uninstall!"

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.

omg I feel like a freaking alien right now. What are these people talking about

Well, it's a slow Sunday. How's yours going?

I don't mind explaining something in more detail, just let me know what.

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