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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

I personally find it quite sad to see reactions on HN regarding the introduction of Docker Desktop subscription model. We all benefit from a well supported Docker company, it’s good to see they are trying to look for a sustainable model. If your team is using their tools daily since years, and you decide to change to a different one just to avoid a small license fee, that feels hypocritical. If the tool worked for you when it was free, it still works when you have to pay a small license fee and brings the same value.

Companies paying for developer tooling is good for the ecosystem.

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My problem is less that it is happening but how we got here.

If docker desktop was originally subscription based or they said that they wanted to make it subscription based later than the reaction would be very different.

But Docker as a company has failed multiple times now to attempt to make money and this feels like a hostage situation by taking away a tool that many now rely on.

They tried to go the support route like RedHat and others, but who needed just Docker support? Especially when there orchestration layer was basically DOA with k8s available.

Last year (?) they started limiting pulls from docker hub unless you paid up. Which spawned companies like AWS to announce their own free alternative/mirror.

At some point with in the last few months they made it so without paying I was forced to update docker desktop or constantly have to click snooze. I was perfectly happy with what it was currently doing and had no desire to update. But they added that artificial limitation after release.

Now they are charging for something that was once free without really explaining any benefits?

I think the reaction is perfectly valid given the companies track record.

There are likely other examples they have tried but likely just didn't notice. Since Docker is in a situation where docker itself is just not what most of us really think about. It is the orchestration and docker is just a path to that.

Edit: Also not super enthused about the idea that I now need to ask during a job interview what software I will be able to have locally for part of my workflow.

> Now they are charging for something that was once free without really explaining any benefits?

It was free when they could afford it. Now it’s not, because they do indeed, need money. Why is that so wrong?

Generally, this pattern has a name: bait and switch. I'm not saying that the company shouldn't make money, but I'm saying that it's widely recognized that providing something free and changing your mind later will inevitably degrade your users' trust in you. So don't be surprised when there's backlash and migration away from your services and tools if you decide to try to turn formerly free services and tools into paid versions with no additional incentive.

I know that HN loves calling everything a bait and switch, but this is not that. It’s a useful product - despite so many here that apparently use it but insist that it’s useless. Docker wants to grow their revenue and is going to start charging companies (who also presumably have some revenue) a fee for the product.

Absolutely normal business strategy.

I haven't said it's useless, and I don't think I've seen anyone's comments calling it useless. But the reality is, what docker does is not complicated. It was not replaced because there wasn't a real reason to. If you built a docker competitor that was also free but did exactly the same things, you'd have been asked "why?"

Now, the answer to that question exists. It's no longer free, which was the primary reason anyone just kept using it when (especially today) it doesn't offer much over alternatives.

Why is the goalpost “Docker” suddenly? That’s still fully free. This whole thread is about the convenient GUI, which is what everyone is complaining about lacking features or purpose.

Docker Desktop, I mean. I personally haven't ever used the GUI except to deal with their new autoupdate prompts. I, and many others, just need something to set up the VM and orchestrate things so that `docker` in my terminal does as expected when I'm using my work-issued Mac. On Linux this is a non-issue, yes.

It’s not “wrong”, but it’s annoying. They’re asking me to invest into their platform, but they’re also constantly increasing the price and/or making it more restrictive. This makes it hard for me to understand the long term cost of a commitment.

They’re now charging for the GUI they have developed, while the core of Docker is still free. Someone has to fund continued development, asking companies for a fee feels quite logical.

Seems to me that a value-add tool makes sense to commercialize. It doesn’t provide a large array of features yet, but this funding will help with that.

If you don’t find it useful enough for the fee, clearly you’re better off with CLI or alternative GUIs.

What features? Are people really asking for more features for Docker Desktop?

I know for me I install it, let it do its setup, and then I do everything from the Docker CLI as if I was on a linux machine.

It has k8s built in if you want to add that also.

We are not talking about a tool here that needs a ton of functionality. But they have become (seemingly at least) the standard tool to have a more consistent Docker setup on Mac or Windows compared to where it will eventually be deployed (Linux). Once you have it setup you should be using the CLI.

I feel like they are severely overestimating the software, I am anticipating several open source alternatives to quickly become available since it wouldn't (or shouldn't) change your workflow at all to put in another alternative.

Edit: TBH I often forget docker desktop is sitting there until it starts asking me to update... so this is a perfect opportunity to replace it.

You’re the perfect out of market example. Use other tools, and be content.

Of course, they’re not charging individuals, so I’m not sure why you’re complaining.

Docker is a valuable product only because of the CLI, not for the GUI. To be honest, no one wants their GUI. It's unfortunate Docker as a company only promotes the Docker Desktop (with GUI) for Mac and Windows.

Because I work at a company that I would have to justify the subscription too?

But you’re not using it? You stated that you don’t even know it was running - clearly you don’t even need a GUI, just CLI.

No, I said I forget it is running.

That is not because I am not using it, but I am indirectly using it by working with the Docker CLI.

What it does is very valuable, but it is a perfect candidate to be replaced by an open source alternative as long as I can continue to use the Docker CLI.

Who’s going to fund your open source alternative? Definitely not you, since Docker asking companies to pay a fee is somehow preposterous.

One important question to ask yourself is, what happens next time they want more money? Just how much of a hostage are you willing to be?

This can be said of literally any paid service. It’s not much of an argument, except on these kinds of HN threads.

A reasonable point.

It is, however, much easier to say it of a service that has a history of flailing around about how and what they want money for than one that has a consistent history of not being surprising.

The more nuanced argument is that the reaction to Docker’s change to charging for the Desktop version is less about the money and more about the stability of the company itself. Surprising your customer base by charging for a previously free product shows that the financials of the company aren’t very stable. This, in turn, is a red flag to rely too heavily on this particular product. Which can then start to cause a downward spiral, if not managed correctly.

But honestly, we already knew this about Docker. They’ve always had issues trying to figure out their business plan.

Unfortunately, despite HN’s insistence that FOSS is sustainable - they have realized the truth, as seen by replies with views similar to yours, that Devs are too stingy to pay and support Dev tools.

Developer tools have always been a tough business to be in. On one hand, you have tools that people love to use that pay the bills. I’m thinking about tools like IntelliJ. But for each of these, there is an Eclipse project that is right there trying to keep pace. And many companies choose Eclipse because it’s free, but others choose IntelliJ because of the quality. I use Eclipse for Kava projects because it’s “good enough” and when I started programming Java, paying for IntelliJ wasn’t something I could afford.

On the other hand, we’re developers… so many of us like building our own tools. Why are there so many options for text editors? Depending on the type of tool, it might just be easier/fun to build your own tool.

It is possible to make money in FOSS, but you really have to get the business plan right from the beginning. It’s a hard business to be in.

If you haven’t read it, “Dreaming in Code” by Scott Rosenberg is a great story about just how hard it is to make a successful FOSS project, even for experienced teams. It details all of the ups and downs of the Chandler project from the early 2000’s.

So your point is that you (personally) don’t like their business model, and don’t like funding the company that created the free Docker software and ecosystem that you use all the time?

"Depends".

IntelliJ and Visual Studio are doing perfectly well.

Maybe not every tiny little tool should be a subscription.

(yes, docker is a tiny tool compared to, say, linux, or kubernetes)

It’s good for the world that random HNers don’t get to decide what other people/companies should do to please them.

It's not wrong, and it's also not wrong of any previous user to decide to move to a free alternative. Let the free market decide whether they are charging a fair price for the value they provide or if there is more value in other options. For as smart as many people are on HN, I've rarely come across a more clueless bunch of folks as far as basic economics

When comments condescendingly say “free market”, it’s a red flag that you’re going to read a “wise” rant.

Meh. GUIs and other frilly OSX crap are a real pain to maintain. Paying for them makes sense.

> If your team is using their tools daily since years, and you decide to change to a different one just to avoid a small license fee, that feels hypocritical

From engineer's perspective the difference between a free tool and a "small fee" (in most companies) is not money. It's the fact that you now have to jump through provisioning hoops and ask for permission to use the tool. The difference in flexibility is enormous.

> From engineer's perspective the difference between a free tool and a "small fee" (in most companies) is not money. It's the fact that you now have to jump through provisioning hoops and ask for permission to use the tool. The difference in flexibility is enormous.

So is the difference in cost to the business: if the fee is small per seat, then the big cost is the license administration overhead, not the license fee, so the induced cost can be much greater than the revenue the seller realizes.

That’s exactly what Docker wants though - You’re using a tool for gainful development for your company. They should be able to afford a fee to compensate Docker for that.

And the risk to Docker is that the red tape required to buy the product isn’t worth the hassle, especially if there are alternatives to using the paid product.

This is all based on open source, so I’d expect there to be many new alternatives within weeks. And workflows for existing tools/interfaces will probably be detailed in blog posts by the weekend.

There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories.

Most people on this thread are not commenting on lack of business model, rather that they “don’t want to pay”.

Totally. Paying a reasonable amount is actually cheaper than the manpower and attention required for an ‘open source check.’ And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-)

> And isn’t it nicer to pay engineers, rather than lawyers? :-)

100%. That’s why these threads shitting on Docker bug me.

> There’s a lot of companies (FAANG incl.) that prefer licensed software with support, over random GitHub repositories.

FAANG (especially Google) have a tendency to take inspiration and rewrite the things that they find interesting.

Notably: Piper (very similar to Perforce) in google.

They also have a tendency to be facing problems and scale issues that are irrelevant to like 99% of other developers, so it's a moot point.

Not sure why you’re comparing version control to a GUI - my experience at FAANG has been quite positive on the usage of licensed tools like Docker Desktop.

People keep telling me that docker for desktop is more than a gui. So either it is or it isn’t and that’s not really for me to say.

But perforce is a (mainly) gui thing and was not “safe” from reimplementation.

A deciding factor may have been that perforce is licensed software; but it could have just of easily been because google wanted better integrations. Both are true for Docker for Desktop

I don’t doubt it. But not everyone works for those kind of companies. I’m also not sure which class of company outnumbers the other, but I think we’d both be surprised.

That’s not a risk. Show me a real company that doesn’t pay for any products and I’ll show you a thousand that do.

Not pay for Docker? What are they going to do? Get everyone on AWS tomorrow? The cost and downtime for most places would be massive.

> it quite sad to see reactions on HN regarding the introduction of Docker Desktop subscription model.

Docker Desktop for Mac simply sucks. It starts slowly, has slow UX, burns CPU all the time even when not active and no container instance is running. They recently added that "you have to upgrade now" popup and it feels updates are more frequent. I might be biased here due to poor UX with the popups, updates were smoother before. If I'm to pay for it, I really would like to have better experience using it. I can run VSCode, IntelliJ and Firefox with dozen of tabs open and my mac isn't as hot as when running docker desktop.

> popup and it feels updates are more frequent

When was the last time it asked you for the system password to update, though?

I think they botched it because mine just doesn’t update anymore. It keeps asking and I press “Install & restart” but it doesn’t do anything!

You need to manually quit it, then start again - the update will be installed at that point. I agree though, horrible UX.

If it sucks so much then why are you using it? There must be a reason, right? And if there's such a compelling reason that you're using it despite how much it sucks, that means it's worth something?

I use it to support other developers, mostly juniors who need help with docker and are unfamiliar with cli.

I believe training junior developers, is a completely valid situation to pay a fee for. Not sure why everything should be free.

This is absolutely not my experience with Docker for Mac. I've been using it daily for years and can't remember a single issue I had with it. Performance is also adequate, even when running many containers, though usually not more than 10 or so. I use a base model MacBook Pro 16".

It still seems to suck battery life on my 13” Intel MBP. But aside from starting to nag me to keep upgrading, that’s about my only complaint.

Does Docker consume battery, or the actual app itself? I don’t have much extra power consumption from the UI app, as to be expected.

Same. Docker definitely had some performance issues on Mac a few years ago but it's fine now.

you must be running tiny containers - I spin up a dozen containers and run a few tests every day. The entire test suite takes 45 minutes on my mac and 25 on linux. Docker for mac performance is atrocious

Do you have any speed data for Docker via Docker Desktop (the tool in question) versus a manually setup Docker Mac setup?

You can’t compare Docker between OSes, and blame Docker after you chose to use an OS that doesn’t support the necessary primitives.

Whether you like the tool or not, they are free to charge for it. Clearly there’s a market > yourself.

Docker on an M1 Mac is inconsistent too. Generally it works fine but not always. It uses qemu and doesn't always surface qemu errors when you're building images (you can see the errors when you're running containers, so less of a problem there). They complete build "successfully" and look like valid images when they aren't. I've had multiple k8s deployments fail locally on minikube and on GKE/EKS because of bad images built by Docker on my M1 Mac. The solution is generally rebuild until it works or use my 10 year old Intel-based Mac, but those are bad solves.

Docker shouldn't be charging anyone for that inconsistent experience.

> and you decide to change to a different one just to avoid a small license fee,

That’s an oversimplification of the issue.

I really don’t care about the small monetary cost. I do, however, care about adding yet another recurring license fee to my already long list of recurring charges and licenses to manage across the team.

It’s not necessarily Docker’s fault, but I think many of us are experiencing a lot of SaaS fatigue with the ever-growing list of services and plans and recurring charges that need to be managed.

Evaluating alternatives isn’t just about dodging a nominal fee. It’s about avoiding yet another recurring overhead and associated hassle, however small, that comes with every additional subscription.

Oh, all those subscriptions. Office space, cleaning, drinks, coffee, electricity, heating, water, ...

Dealing with expenses is part of running a business. Sure there's a lot, but that's part of it.

You're correct.

My experience procuring SaaS (or even just self-hosted software licenses) is that there's a very different process for those than there is for sandwiches or janitorial staff. The engineers are always involved, but the negotiation process is arduous _every time_, and requires looping in the procurement team, who is essentially paid by how much of a discount they get off of sticker. So there I am, trying to run a suite of services for the company I work for, and every renewal is an existential crisis where the procurement team plays chicken with the vendor to see who will crack first in the negotiation, all the while the license expiration for my service is creeping ever closer. I've suffered large production outages because of this dynamic, and I'm tired of it: it's a totally avoidable risk, and I view part of my value to my employer as helping them avoid totally avoidable risks.

So, I tend to go for open source or "bundled" solutions (like AWS) where I can avoid this process. I suspect this is what GP was getting at.

I pay my electricity by the watt, and I pay for water because without it, we die.

I don't really care about your $25/month Wiki/Container/Notes SaaS as much. If you raise the price anywhere along the subscription chain, this little frog is going to jump out long before you start boiling the water.

Before you had a free lunch. Now they set a price on it. You check if the value you get from their product is worth the price they ask for (IMHO they priced it way too low). If that doesn’t match then you move away. Economics 101. The way people describe the situation in this thread makes it like they have been betrayed by their spouses… Nobody is exploiting anyone else, only one side decided to ask something in exchange for their beloved product. And only from large companies!

I personally am just looking for a stable tool to build and test images. I can appreciate that Docker is looking for a way to become sustainable, but the way they are going about doing it has become disruptive to how I use the tool, thus alternatives like podman are becoming much more attractive.

The license fee is really not an issue for me - but continuously having to adjust my workflows when Docker Inc decides to change how things work on the back-end is an issue, and it's much more expensive for me than the license.

You’re using Docker, and confusing the convenient UI app for the CLI. You can easily setup Docker without it, and never have to worry about any GUI asking for a fee.

Yet, here we are. Lots of complaints, but no real understanding.

If an alternative like podman works for you, then Docker for Desktop is not really targeting you at all, right? It's only for Mac and Windows computers, not for Linux.

If you just want to build and test images, a Linux VM with the open source Docker engine installed will work fine :)

It's the bait-and-switch aspect I suspect most are reacting negatively to. Given how many of these 'pivots' we've seen, let's be honest is observing that generally the plan for a sustainable model all along most likely was "don't start charging for it until we're sure we've become a user habit and killed the competition." They knew long ago, if not on day one, that "give it away for free and make it up in volume" wasn't a serious long term plan. On the one hand, I don't blame companies for pulling this because the market continues to go along with it. On the other, I have no sympathy for the backlash they get for doing it.

Choice and competition are good. Companies taking a scorched earth approach with extended "free... for now (because we've got the runway to do it)" business models are bad for the ecosystem.

TBF if you know the history of Docker, it seems unlikely that this was their plan in the beginning.

Docker started back before the container orchestrator wars and the rise of Kubernetes. They couldn't have predicted that or the popularity of their services and tools.

They then had the enterprise Docker edition and swarm along with UCP which at one point looked like a reasonable path to monetization.

It was only after selling the enterprise software arm to Mirantis, which isn't that long ago really, that it would have been likely that their end game was charging for the Docker desktop product.

> I personally find it quite sad to see reactions on HN regarding the introduction of Docker Desktop subscription model

Let me tell you what the problem is. This is the Darth Vader business model: "I have altered the deal, pray that I don't alter it further".

The reactions didn't start today.

First, features that could decrease their lockin tend to linger in limbo forever. For example, the ability to have mirrors. This works, but _only for dockerhub_. Isn't that odd? There are even pull requests proposed ( * )

https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/18818

Then there were the Dockerhub changes. Those are understandable, it must be a heavy money sink to maintain that service. Want to keep using that registry? Pay them. This is a fine arrangement (but note that dockerhub has special status, as you can use it without specifying the registry, and it can be used a a mirror). Still ok though.

More recently they changed Docker Desktop to not allow skipping updates if you are not paying them. That was the strangest "feature" ever. Don't want to support? Say that's the last supported "free" version and stop providing updates after a certain date. But this "you can only choose NOT to update if you are pro" was weird.

And then there's this.

They have been trying and failing to extract a working business model out of their technology. So instead of trying to offer something that would entice people to pay, they have started to cripple their product for the ones who don't pay, just to get back to the same feature level they had before.

Can they do that? Of course. What else will they decide to do in the future though?

( * ) Maybe this would be a Docker Pro/Team/Enterprise/whatever feature? Ok cool. This would make my life easier to try to pitch buying it. Mirrors would improve stability. Maybe some fancy local caching for K8s clusters so they would avoid pulls if another machine has pulled an image already? Give us something that will save time or money or improve stability and I can pitch to management. Right now? I see no reason to pitch pro/team/business as most of their stuff we don't care about. And maybe don't conflate Docker, the software, with DockerHub?

> More recently they changed Docker Desktop to not allow skipping updates if you are not paying them.

More recently than that, they changed it back to allow skipping the updates for free after all.

> So instead of trying to offer something that would entice people to pay,

Like a convenient desktop-based virtualization layer that allows running Docker containers on Mac and Windows?

> they have started to cripple their product for the ones who don't pay

You mean like how Linux software doesn't run on Windows and Mac natively? Weird.

Author here. I agree. Even as a past maintainer of minikube, I still am a frequent user of Docker Desktop and would gladly pay for it

Btw, thanks for the article, it’s an interesting read, I like your writing style

In big Companies, the usage of VPN solution is pretty common. Especially since COVID with the rise of remote workers. One big feature Docker Desktop nailed is the VPN friendlyest of the solution! They developped VPNKit to solve VPN issues, and honestly it works very well. None on the alternatives provide such feature!

What does it do?

It links docker's network through a linux/windows pipe to a process on your windows/mac host. So containers network packets don't get out from a virtual network adapter (that can be filtered out) but from a vpnkit.exe process on windows. Using this, you are more compliant with strict corporate security rules and are less likely to be blocked by your VPN client, proxy firewall etc...

As someone with only minimal experience with containers, is Docker the company still relevant? When I set up a new server with RHEL it has some open source replacements (podman) instead, and says they work with the same containers.

The Docker Desktop client obviously is useful for quickly setting up and interacting on macOS and Windows graphically, but is Docker still relevant for the server? It seems like Docker Swarm never took off and everyone just uses Kubernetes anyway.

Reframing the discussion in terms of just server seems to be deliberately missing the point, since the issue under consideration is the new pricing model for Docker Desktop. Which is 100% about developer experience on OS X and Windows.

As usual situations vary: I work in a small company, I'm the sole dev, there's absolutely 0 budget for dev tools, if it's not free I can't have it.

In this case Docker's approach serves you well, as you are not expected to pay the subscription fee if your company has less than 250 people.

We're very close to 250 people (but probably under, I need to check) but we're over the 10M / year line.

And yes, the company could pay, it's just they don't want to.

Just an example, I need to vent: I wrote a program that pilot all the lights in the company. To my great shame, it was failing spectacularly despite hours spent debugging the thing.

I received a lot of criticism about my coding skills.

Until I convinced him to buy pro dedicated hardware instead of cheap Arduino knockoffs to be the interface between my program and the light switches.

It's working like a charm since 2010.

If you have almost 250 people and more than $10M/yr revenue–how are you a small company?!

I misread, I thought you were saying you were the only employee, not the only dev. I also feel for you -- it's not fun having to fight tooth and nail to get funding for essential dev tools.

I haven’t read all the replies so someone else may have talked about this, however for enterprises it’s not the cost, so I certainly agree with you. Enterprises pay large amounts for services (ie Slack, etc) so the number of employees using docker in a corporation isn’t overall large enough that these changes would cause a blip on a finance statement.

That being said, while I’m not a first person knowledge on the reasons, the company I work for would not accept the licensing terms. What exactly the issue is, I don’t know, but I know a lot of effort has gone into prepping to mitigate this change and move the company away from Docker as a solution.

In the end, I’m guessing the biggest misstep here is the terms included in the new agreements, not the price.

Docker Enterprise was already sold.

What they said then about the community and future was this:

> Moving forward, we will expand Docker Desktop and Docker Hub’s roles in the developer workflow for modern apps.

Problem is, that i don't see anything really improving. It seems that they are cashing in, no?

They are continuously investing into Docker for Desktop, which is what is being discussed here. See the other people in the thread complaining they have to update too often as a side effect.

By 'cashing in', do you perhaps mean 'trying to earn a living'?

I would think that is the idea of having an enterprise version for. Which they sold.

And so they're never allowed to change their business model? Companies sell divisions and change their product lines all the time. What makes Docker's change so different? Let me guess, it's because it inconveniences a few loud HN commenters.

If Docker Desktop seemed like it was a great product I would be happy to pay money for it. But I've been using it for years and it still doesn't feel like Docker gets what I want from it, and I'm not sure I see the thing evolving to be what I want.

I want something a lot more like minikube or preferably buildah/podman. So this is a natural moment to ask if I can get the thing that I really want and incidentally avoid spending $1000/year in licensing which is not nothing.

The license fee doesn't come out of your pocket though? It's purchased by your company. And that too only for businesses large enough to qualify for that tier.

I agree with (some) of this. Companies are always going to be free to find alternatives if they're motivated to do so, but the cost of this subscription model is a drop in the bucket for a lot of larger firms, and there's nothing wrong with supporting a company that maintains and develops a critical piece of your infrastructure (in fact it's quite savvy).

I sometimes worry that we've gotten too used to free things, whether those things are youtube videos, articles by journalistic institutions or pieces of software. I'm hardly an exception here -- I too wince when I see a paywall in front of an article, but people need to be able to sustain themselves when they create things that benefit others. It's hard the reconcile the paradox of wanting high quality things without paying for it.

Step 1) Release open source free software

Step 2) Get millions of people aboard

Step 3) Clamp down, raise prices, make people pay for their mistake of relying on 'free' services/products.

If you change Step 1) to Subsidize services, then you get Uber/Lyft. This also applies to drug trading (first time is free!).

It gives unfair advantage to companies that have deep VC-lined pockets and a huge pool of money to spend. It raises the critical barrier for the small-guy to compete in this landscape. It also makes it easy for these companies to wipe out competition by undercutting them. This is just cheating.

It’s good business, i don’t see wha is wrong with it. You offer code source, documentation, tools for free for a very, very long time. Eventually you ask for a small license fee from big companies. Everybody benefited immensely from this.

How do people who use containerd and minikube benefit from a well supported Docker company?

Docker begat ContainerD, so without Docker the organization, it would not exist as a project in it's current form.

As to current support, well if you're just using minikube, you don't need Docker Desktop, so this isn't a problem :)

But would they care if Docker Inc went bankrupt now? The claim was we all benefit. Universal and present tense.

If Docker hub went away, I have a fairly strong feeling the sound of CI/CD pipelines collapsing around the world would be heard for quite a while :)

Also without paid developers maintaining Docker Engine, there would be a nasty situation next time there was a security issue in it and the millions of installs were unmaintained.

I believe Microsoft acquires Docker, Inc before that, like npm, Inc.

In that case we would be back with what the original question asked for...

> a well supported Docker company

That’s not really relevant, the discussion is about Docker for Desktop. But your still benefit from their brand and marketing and development efforts, as the rest of the ecosystem.

Do you mean you just meant Docker Desktop users when you said we all?

The ecosystem doesn't depend on Docker Inc now. And how do I benefit from the brand?

You benefit from the brand because you can point to the success of Docker instead of having to argue with other engineers that containerization is a good approach to development/deployment.

I never had to do that. I had to convince people Docker isn't the right tool for every job though.

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