MinIO stops distributing free Docker images

It's an Open Source project - I don't understand what people are complaining about. Noone is entitled to receive free Docker images. I'm sure if there is enough demand, someone else who is trustworthy will step up and automate building them.

What I'd like to complain about instead is the pricing page on the Min.io webpage - it doesn't list any pricing. Looking at https://cloudian.com/blog/minios-ui-removal-leaves-organizat... it seems the prices are not cheap at all (minimum of $96,000 per year). Note that Cloudian is a competitor offering a closed-source product.

When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation, people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation.

You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images especially after a CVE and with no prior notice (except a hidden commit 4 days ago that updated the README) is approaching malicious-level actions.

If they truly cared about their community and still wanted to go through the decision of not offering public docker builds the responsible thing to do is offer a warning period, start adding notices in the repo (gh and docker) and create an easy migration path, even endorse or help some community members who would be fine with taking care of the public builds of the image.

But no, they introduced the change, made no public statement about it, waited for someone to notice this, offered no explanation and went silent. After a huge CVE. Irresponsible.

> When you always published and built Docker images for the public you are creating an expectation

That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though.

> people will rely on that and will chose your software based on that expectation

That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody.

> You suddenly deciding that you won't be offering updated Docker images […] is approaching malicious-level actions.

I really don’t get this entitlement. “You are still doing unpaid work I benefit from, but you used to do more, therefore you are malicious.” is something I really cannot get behind.

"That expectation does not entitle anybody to anything though."

This is true legally, but not otherwise (socially, practically)

"That is their decision. Without any contract or promise, there is no obligation to anybody."

Again, true legally, but IMHO a really silly position to take overall.

Imagine I provide free electricity to everyone in my town. I encourage everyone to use it. I do it all for free. I'm very careful to ensure the legal framework means i have no obligation, and everyone knows i have no obligations to them legally. They all take me up on it. All the other providers wither and die as a result. 15 years later, i decide to shut it all down on a whim because i want to move on to other things. The lights go out for the town everywhere.

Saying "i have no legal obligations" is true, but expecting people to not be pissed off, complain, and expect me to not do this is at best, naive.

Calling them entitled is even funnier. It's sort of irrelevant if they are entitled or not, after i put them in this position.

Legal obligation is not the only form of obligation, and not even the interesting ones most of the time.

More importantly - society has never survived on legal obligation alone.

I do not think you would enjoy living in a world where legal obligation is the only thing that mattered.

This is a bad analogy. We are talking about building a very simple Docker image.

It is more like you went around your neighborhood and turned peoples lights on in the evening, then stopped.

Sure, it’s a lost convenience, but people can easily choose to just… push the button themselves. Or pay somebody to continue doing it for them. Or get a timer.

It’s really not a big deal, and there are plenty of alternatives.

I think you are missing the point of legal vs societal obligations and your analogy is equally bad. Minio's sold you this free light bulb and they also freely offered the service to upgrade it to the newest version every time a new lightbulb was released. There are many light bulb brands out there, some paid, some free, most of them also offer the service to upgrade the lightbulb automatically, even the free ones.

Then Minio decided to disable the feature to upgrade the lightbulb automatically, the code to update it is still there, they just don't want to do it anymore. Conveniently there is a Minio+ enterprise plan that has this feature. But hey! they tell you that you can easily set up your own server to update your lightbulb automatically. And most enterprise clients or people who have Minio lightbulbs in their office will do that.

But for single enthusiasts who don't have a server because they are just running a Minio lightbulb in their shed it's a bad situation, because if they knew this from the beginning they would have gone with another free lightbulb that updated automatically.

In short: Minio has the legal right to do whatever they want, people using minio have the right to be pissed. It's an all around bad publicity stunt and if I was a Minio investor I would really wonder why they are trying to piss off their loyal user base for a quick buck.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to fulfill their own "societal obligations" and contribute back to the community they've benefited (taken) from.