- the former is managed by the Docker Governance Advisory Board with people from many companies and individuals, see minute of the first meeting here for example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JfWNzfwptsMgSx82QyWH_Aj0...
- the latter is a company that naturally needs to be profitable.
In fact I'm surprised so many people find Docker Inc. developing a "platform" around Docker a change of direction, let alone unexpected.
It's nothing new and in fact I feel like Docker Inc choice is the "right" one: historically Commercial Open Source companies have had only a handful of choices to monetise: 1) selling support and services around the open source product, 2) going Open Core, 3) developing orthogonal, complementary commercial products around the main open source one and 4) be acquired :-D
RedHat is really the only one that managed to make option 1 work at scale and it looks like a black swan the longer time goes by. Option 2 was a bad idea to begin with a few years ago and I'm still surprised there are companies going for it today (I experienced it on my own skin). Option 4 is what it is.
So Option 3 is really the only reasonable way to go: keep the open source product really open source and make money with complementary products. I kind of expected this to be the way to go for Docker Inc all along, with a little niggle at the back of my mind fearing they would go for Open Core instead.