Docker Hub announces the removal of the free service Docker Free Team

Docker is an open source project that automates application deployment, it is ending Docker Free Team

Docker angered Free Team plan users after announcing recently I would drop the free plan. To organizations and developers using Free Team se notified them via email that they had one month to upgrade to a paid plan or risk having your account suspended and your images removed.

For those unaware of Docker, they should know that this is an open source platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. It enables developers and organizations to separate their applications from their infrastructure so they can quickly deliver software and manage their infrastructure the same way they manage their applications. And Docker Hub is the world's largest container image library and community. A Docker image is a convenient way to package preconfigured applications and server environments, which you can use for your own private use or share with other Docker users.

Docker leaves Free Team

Some open source developers hosting container images in the Docker Hub directory have been notified that the subscription service “Docker Free Team”, which previously provided free of charge to organizations that maintain open source projects, is about to end. The possibility of free personal placement of images by individual developers remains. Officially supported images from open source projects will also continue to be hosted for free.

Docker estimates that the change will affect around 2% of users. who are encouraged to upgrade to a paid plan ($420 per year) by April 14 or complete an application to participate in the Docker-sponsored Open Source Program initiative, which allows free access to Docker Hub for development projects. actively updated open source code that meets the criteria of the Open Source Initiative, developed in public repositories and does not receive commercial benefits from their developments (projects that exist on donations (but without sponsors), as well as projects from non-profit foundations such as Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Apache Foundation)

There is concern in the community that the removal could disrupt the operation of various infrastructure linked to container images downloaded from Docker Hub, since it is not known which project images will be removed (a warning about the upcoming completion of work is only displayed in the personal account of the image owner) and there is no guarantee that the image in use does not disappear. Because of this, open source projects using Docker Hub are encouraged to make it clear to users whether their images will be kept on Docker Hub or moved to another service like GitHub Container Registry.

The anger is most intense in the open source software community, as it risks breaking build automations for many open source projects. Critics say this could affect images used in continuous integration build scripts.

Docker has a free tier and also offers paid subscription plans. And with its Free Team service, the company gave Docker Hub users the ability to create teams and give members access to shared image repositories. This service would be used mainly by maintainers of open source projects.

But with this decision, Docker users with a Free Team account began to report that they received an email from Docker informing them that they will soon no longer be able to use the service and must upgrade to a paid subscription in 30 days or else they will lose access to their data.

After April 14, access to repositories will be limited public and private images and organization accounts will be frozen (personal accounts of individual developers will remain valid). In the future, for another 30 days, owners will have the opportunity to resume access after switching to a paid plan, but then images and organization accounts will be removed, and names will be reserved to prevent re-registration by attackers.