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Can Docker Survive Google? (bloomberg.com)
Though Docker has 400 corporate customers -- and plans to double its sales staff -- "here's what happens to a startup when Google gets all up in its business," reads a recent headline at Bloomberg:
Docker Inc. helped establish a type of software tool known as containers...and they've made the company rich. Venture capitalists have poured about $240 million into the startup, according to research firm CB Insights. Then along came Google, with its own free container system called Kubernetes. Google has successfully inserted Kubernetes into the coder toolbox. While Docker and Kubernetes serve slightly different purposes, customers who choose Google's tool can avoid paying Docker.
The startup gives away its most popular product while trying to convince developers to pay for extras, notably a program that does the same thing as Google's. "Kubernetes basically has ruled the industry, and it is the de facto standard," said Gary Chen, an analyst at IDC. "Docker has to figure out how do they differentiate themselves." It's up to [Docker CEO] Steve Singh to escape a situation that's trapped many startups battling cash-rich tech giants like Google, dangling free alternatives... "They invented this great tech, but they are not the ones profiting from it," said Gary Chen, an analyst at IDC.
Though Docker's CEO is hoping to take the company public someday, Slashdot reader oaf357 predicts a different future: To say that Docker had a very rough 2017 is an understatement. Aside from Uber, I can't think of a more utilized, hyped, and well funded Silicon Valley startup (still in operation) fumbling as bad as Docker did in 2017. People will look back on 2017 as the year Docker, a great piece of software, was completely ruined by bad business practices leading to its end in 2018.
His article criticizes things like the new Moby upstream for the Docker project, along with "Docker's late and awkward embrace of Kubernetes... It's almost as if Docker is conceding itself to being a marginal consulting firm in the container space." And he suggests that ultimately Docker could be acquired by "a large organization like Oracle or Microsoft."
The startup gives away its most popular product while trying to convince developers to pay for extras, notably a program that does the same thing as Google's. "Kubernetes basically has ruled the industry, and it is the de facto standard," said Gary Chen, an analyst at IDC. "Docker has to figure out how do they differentiate themselves." It's up to [Docker CEO] Steve Singh to escape a situation that's trapped many startups battling cash-rich tech giants like Google, dangling free alternatives... "They invented this great tech, but they are not the ones profiting from it," said Gary Chen, an analyst at IDC.
Though Docker's CEO is hoping to take the company public someday, Slashdot reader oaf357 predicts a different future: To say that Docker had a very rough 2017 is an understatement. Aside from Uber, I can't think of a more utilized, hyped, and well funded Silicon Valley startup (still in operation) fumbling as bad as Docker did in 2017. People will look back on 2017 as the year Docker, a great piece of software, was completely ruined by bad business practices leading to its end in 2018.
His article criticizes things like the new Moby upstream for the Docker project, along with "Docker's late and awkward embrace of Kubernetes... It's almost as if Docker is conceding itself to being a marginal consulting firm in the container space." And he suggests that ultimately Docker could be acquired by "a large organization like Oracle or Microsoft."
Kubernetes (k8s) orchestrates containers, one of which is Docker. Docker Swarm is the proper comparison to k8s.
I tried Kubernetes and Docker this year, I went with Docker. Kubernetes is quite a bit more complicated to set up and has a LOT of minor inconsistencies and issues that make it hard to work with out of the box without loads and loads of third party tools (which are really workarounds).
Docker "just works" and although it has a few problems and is not quite as flexible as Kubernetes, they're actually working on fixing them. It for example comes without any built-in SPOF which for Kubernetes you have to figure out yourself (should I use etcd or zookeeper or something else).
All-in-all I think if you're used to working with "beta software" that is built to scale for "the cloud" then go with Kubernetes. If you need to simply set up a container with an existing (or legacy) software stack, Docker seems to be the way to go. Hence Docker, will not go away because enterprise users need it and Kubernetes will be the stack of choice for startups.
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What invention? The idea of containers has been around since long before Docker came along. They were good at refining it and making it popular, but it was on the backs of many others who put effort into it over the years. Why should Docker have the ability to monopolize the market in this situation?
When I saw Docker in the title I thought this was about khaki pants.
Once Google knocks out Docker, in a year or two they will then announce the purchase of all the Docker IP. Then, in another year or so, they will announce the "end of life" for the project, just they've with many other products.
Actually what happened was
1) Containers were already supported by Solaris, FreeBSD and others
2) Google saw the need for containers in Linux for its own purposes, as a lightweight alternative to VMs
3) Google helped add the necessary support to the Linux kernel, but kept its UI/application level tool private
4) Docker (originally dotCloud Inc) came along and added the UI/application level tool, which took off like gangbusters
5) Google released Kubernetes, which presumably is either #3 or a successor to it
6) Docker, trying to figure out how to make money, decided not to release certain enterprise features (e.g. orchestration of containers across a cluster) as open source
7) Developers started moving to Kubernetes
So Docker did not "invent" containers, even on Linux. They were, however, the innovators in the sense of Apple with the original Mac.
Saying a container speciliast company is viable is sort of like saying a specialist in fileutils (rm/cp/ls/ln) could be a company. The truth is containers are a solid technology because they are relatively straightforward.
Docker started by wanting to provide some alternative usage scenario to the stuff that LXC was providing. The hardest part of the work was the kernel namespaces, cgroups, and device mapper pieces. Docker had the admittedly good idea of focusing on more disposable application images rather than faking virtual machines. They found success because they were open and could be ubiquitous. If they had tried to be closed, an alternative would have sprung up in a matter of months (you could teach 3 college students about the C code to manipulate namespaces and have them craft a rudimentary docker alternative in a semester).
Then came the challenge of finding a path to profitability. Effectively docker was a really good uber-chroot, and that's not exactly sufficiently sophisticated to make a business out of. So they thought "multi-container management will be it!" and make swarm their commercial strategy.
The problem is, when all is said and done even that isn't exactly hard to craft, so Google came along and provided that essentially in their 'spare time'. If they hadn't bothered, Mesos would have fit the bill.
The state of container technology is such that it is actually underwhelming to use, and I mean that as a compliment. It doesn't feel like some big ordeal that warrants consulting and such, at least no more so than dealing with whatever software runs on top of that layer, which is inevitably much more complex than the effort of launching the containers. It's sort of like a mechanic specializing in only changing your oil filter, but only after you've bought all the supplies, lifted your car, and drained the oil yourself.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Funny, those are my least favourite parts. The scientific HPC community seems to have invented Singularity, which is like docker but without the annoying bits.
All the Linux distros, cran, cpan, etc. would all like to dispute your claim that a software collection (local and remote) is novel.
I seem to remember that some of the VM systems had template machines you could download too.