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The Deletion of Docker.io/Bitnami

(community.broadcom.com)
329 points zdkaster | 10 comments | 28 Aug 25 04:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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asmor ◴[28 Aug 25 07:28 UTC] No.45049447[source]▶
> However, in order to sustain and support the dedicated team of engineers who maintain and build new charts and images, a subscription will be required if an organization needs the images and charts built and hosted in an OCI registry for them.

This is such a naive take. Bitnami images were a sign of goodwill, a foot in the door at places were the hardened images were actually needed. They just couldn't compete with the better options on the market. This isn't a way to fix it, it's extortion. This is the same thing Terraform Cloud did, and I don't think that product is doing so hot.

> Essentially, Bitnami has been the Jenkins of the internet for many years, but this has become unsustainable.

It's other people's software, so it's very rich of Bitnami to accuse anyone of freeloading when their only contribution is adding config options to software that maybe corresponds to a level 2 on the OperatorFramework capability scale[1] - usually more of a 1.

[1]: https://operatorframework.io/operator-capabilities/

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darkwater ◴[28 Aug 25 10:15 UTC] No.45050416[source]▶
> It's other people's software, so it's very rich of Bitnami to accuse anyone of freeloading when their only contribution is adding config options to software

I'm not going to defend a corporation but this sentence feels very entitled. They were providing it for free, you could use it. They are not going to provide it for free anymore, you migrate to something else or self-maintain it and say "thank you for the base work you did I can use now"

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1. cthor ◴[28 Aug 25 12:29 UTC] No.45051344[source]▶
Vendor lock-in is a thing. Switching costs are a thing. They know this. That's the whole business model. They're expecting that the cost of switching to outweigh the cost of the subscription.

I get that this business model is fashionable amongst wannabe rent-seekers, but it's still antisocial and should be shunned.

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2. darkwater ◴[28 Aug 25 12:39 UTC] No.45051434[source]▶
Evaluating the risks of vendor lock-in is a buyer's task, unless it is a protected market or there is a monopoly abuse involved.

In this case, nobody forced (generic) you to use Bitnami's Docker images, you probably just thought "how convenient, always updated and easy to pull, one less thing to worry about". Which is fine, but it's always a bet on what will happen in the future.

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3. cthor ◴[28 Aug 25 13:50 UTC] No.45052180[source]▶
Yes, yes. And a person who's pick-pocketed may well do better to protect their pockets. This does not absolve the thief.

Reasonable people can disagree about the degree to which vendor lock-in is antisocial or the degree to which there even is vendor lock-in here. But telling victims of such behavior to just suck it up and price it in only serves to distract from and abet actors abusing positions of power to rent seek and create low trust environments. It's not a systemic solution and it's not a serious engagement with the criticism levied.

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4. coredog64 ◴[28 Aug 25 14:12 UTC] No.45052410[source]▶
This is not rent-seeking: Rent-seeking is leveraging your position to garner economic rents, like putting a toll gate across a highway in which the only value received for the toll is the opening of the gate.

Rent-seeking would be Broadcom saying that you must run a Bitnami image in CloudFoundry or pay a penalty for not doing so. They are in fact doing some work here. We may disagree on whether or not they're being compensated fairly for that work, but that disagreement doesn't turn this into "rent-seeking"

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5. darkwater ◴[28 Aug 25 14:15 UTC] No.45052449{3}[source]▶
> Yes, yes. And a person who's pick-pocketed may well do better to protect their pockets. This does not absolve the thief.

Freedom of roaming without having to worry about pickpockets it's one thing. Deciding that you go with the opensource offering of a company because it's convenient for you is another. I know it's just one example but the entitlement here is _the key_. You are entitled to go to whatever zone of a city and it's not right to blame the victim in that case. You are not entitled to have part of the business decisions of a company you were a "client" without paying a dime or signing any binding contract. You would be entitled to that if they were breaking some opensource license, for example.

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6. asmor ◴[28 Aug 25 14:27 UTC] No.45052586[source]▶
The penalty is the work of migrating away and redoing any integration work on a month's notice. That might seem trivial to a small deployment, but I know some people that use these images everywhere, including in places that aren't immediately obvious.
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7. natebc ◴[28 Aug 25 14:41 UTC] No.45052795{3}[source]▶
Not to mention a lot of people that are going do be doing this work are the same people also spending the year swapping out hypervisors which is also no small task.

Maybe it's just me?

8. cthor ◴[28 Aug 25 15:16 UTC] No.45053268{4}[source]▶
Just because you want that to be "the key" doesn't make it so. You make that your singular focus and you let antisocial behaviour off the hook. That is your prerogative.

For me, the key is the bait and switch. It's like a drug dealer offering first time customers a discount. It's a good business strategy to get people hooked. Very enterprising. Nonetheless, I would prefer a society without such behaviour.

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9. ◴[28 Aug 25 16:28 UTC] No.45054103[source]▶
10. geodel ◴[28 Aug 25 17:37 UTC] No.45054848{5}[source]▶
You mean society where I can benefit at cost of other party indefinitely but when other try to stop I berate them for changing conditions which benefited me.