Docker removes the free offer “Docker Free Team”
Docker delivered bad news a few days ago for some clients, and that is that for those with a Free Team account, they should have received an email informing them that they had one month to switch to the paid plan ($300 per year).
Docker says these teams can transition to open source sponsored by Docker or DSOS. Additionally, teams receive a free subscription to Docker Team for one year, but they can never monetize their software. Donations are only allowed for operating expenses.
Both users such as developers who maintain repositories with Docker they are not happy with the news. The developers say they are in a difficult situation because of their images, but also the images of others they trust.
Users are at risk because the images they are using could suddenly stop if the developer cannot successfully evade them.
And if the developer switches to Githubs Container Registry, for example, then the image URL still needs to be adjusted, which also requires the end user to be informed.
According to various comments such as Alex Ellis of OpenFAAS (a framework that allows you to create serverless functions thanks to the use of containers), the email from Docker indicates that “Free Team entities fall under a subscription-level legacy that is no longer exists” and added that “this tier had many of the same features, pricing and functionality as a paid Docker Team subscription. …
If you have a Free Team organization, access to paid features, including private repositories, will be discontinued on April 14, 2023… Please upgrade your subscription by April 14, 2023 to continue accessing your entity.” Also in his email, Docker notes that data from accounts that are not updated will be retained for 30 days..
Docker claims in an update of its disclosure that “only 2 percent of users are affected”, but that's probably about 2 percent of developers using Docker repositories, not 2 percent of all Docker users, including customers who only use Docker to retrieve images. Images from two percent of repository maintainers can still experience a lot of hitching.
In case of refusal, they would lose access to their data. It is worth mentioning that Docker Team subscriptions bring together a set of developers within a single entity and access to a catalog of Docker repositories, this proposal has been widely adopted by various open source projects. Deleting it means losing data, including Docker images.
Tim Perry, creator of project called «httptoolkit"He also commented:
“I run a small open source project, but with some revenue (just enough to make development with a single developer viable), which means it seems like I'm also not allowed to participate in the open source program.
Most of those complaining about this change are managing open source projects. whose build dependencies might be broken, like the Mamba project. Some, like Livebook, are already planning to move all Docker containers to GitHub Container Registry, but will need to migrate their old images manually. The Kubernetes Kind project is also considering other options, all of which may disrupt workflows and require a rebuild.
To the developers too they were worried that their namespace would be hijacked by others after removal, which would make it vulnerable to malware distribution, but Docker said that
“any suspected or removed organization will not release the namespace, so it will not be possible to occupy the old namespace” Docker has also promised not to suspend an organization while a DSOS request is being reviewed.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the initial communication said that the "organization data" of the teams with this membership would be deleted after 30 days, so if no change or action is made on April 14 at 23:59 UTC , access to all features that are only included in paid packages will be restricted, including private repositories.