What trickery does OrbStack[0] use to be fast?
We went back to Podman Desktop because of the license[1], but the interactions on macOS are almost as slow as Docker Desktop.
As for Podman itself, happy users here, and our workflows have been working for a while now. We are only missing faster local development.
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You can do this yourself via multipass, it's an interesting solution specifically on Apple Silicon because nested virtualization is not available and lxc does not require a hypervisor .
By "we" I assume you're referring to your company/employer, so I'm curious if there's any way the license could be more palatable short of being 100% free?
I have no problem paying for quality products, which OrbStack appears to be … but developers hear the words “license” or “free” and then get hopeful they can get a free lunch.
As such, a suggestion, just remove this line from your FAQ:
“Educational and non-profit open-source licenses subject to approval. Commercial open-source developers must purchase a license.”
Talking about open source in the same context of a paid subscription might be confusing people.
It's making some useful work though. It's only going to be free for non-profits who develop open-source software.
(I work at a non-profit which makes some closed-source software, and I'm an Orbstack user, so I expect to pay when the time comes)
Out of curiosity: is it for internal use?
Thanks for pointing that line out — just reworded it to be more clear.
Also, the rest of the page implies OrbStack will be charging for any commercial use.
If this is the case, I don’t see how this is “free” in the sense that most people on this site interpret it. Have you thought about the FOSS model with support, maybe a Jetbrains style thing - adding enterprise/paid features on top of the FOSS stack?
However, I think referring to something as "free" when it's explicitly "free right now and probably not later" is a bit misleading. I doubt GP was trying to pull any wool over any eyes. In the enterprise context, especially, the differentiation is pretty important. Also, the page I linked does imply that it will become not free in the lunch sense of the term, for commercial users (already not free in the libre sense of the term, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that).
So there's only 1 VM, running a modified Linux kernel (https://github.com/orbstack/linux-macvirt/commits/mac-pub) with a barebones userland. Then inside there's a bunch of souped-up chroots (probably LXC/LXD), running the various linux distribution VMs as well as one that just runs `dockerd`.
Here it specifies that all the VMs share 1 kernel: https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture#linux-machines
On top of this, it's fast because it uses Rosetta (which is very fast) and kdrag0n spent a lot of time optimizing various parts of the kernel and the resulting environment.
Developer time is probably your most expensive resource. Saving $8/mo at the cost of dev time seems… suboptimal.
A) forced changes which can eat your “savings”
B) rent seeking (or: non-optional price increases like I’ve experienced with gitlab)
C) The company pivots and leaves your tool behind to languish